Sleeping Beauty
by Naja Melanoleuca
Summary: How far will House push Chase to make him pay for his betrayal? A round about story explaining how the two forgave each other. Rated for language
1. Chapter 1

A/N: OK, OK, I know I was going to work on my epilogue story, and I am but I'm not ready to post it yet so I thought I would try something else. I was interested in trying to figure out why Chase and House forgave each other. So hope you enjoy. The first chapter is short because it is setting the stage. This takes place before my other story Conflicts.

Also, I could really use a beta reader. English isn't really my only first language (I learned Afrikaans and English at the same time) and I'm a veterinarian so most of what I write normally has to do with how much a calf or a dog weighs. If you are interested, leave me a message in the review section. Thanks

Disclaimer: I don't own these people and a good thing too because I'm not very nice to them.

**Sleeping Beauty**

It was 1:30 in the morning when Chase trudged up the six flights of stairs to his loft. He was so tired he didn't even bother to keep his eyes open as he walked, trusting that he knew the way well enough. He slowly managed to work the key into his front door and slid in, resting his back against the door once he had closed it. This was the first time he had been home in almost three days. He quickly fed his fish then staggered up to his bed. He didn't even bother taking off his scrubs, just kicked off his shoes and fell face first into his bed and was dead asleep before he even hit the pillow.

House had been on the rampage the last few weeks. He still hadn't forgiven Chase for talking to Vogler and the elder doctor was taking great joy in punishing him. It was nothing huge, mostly petty stuff like not letting Chase take lunch breaks or making him do grunt work but it was getting worse. He hadn't let the Aussie take a day off in almost seven weeks and between Cuddy's new rotations through ICU, clinic, and working for House, he working at least 16 hour days almost every day and sometimes up to 20 hours. He was so tired he could barely see straight.

At 4:30 his phone rang and Chase almost ignored, almost but didn't. He rolled over, knocking his glasses and a bottle of water off his side table trying to find the phone. It took him two tries to answer it; coordination wasn't his strong suit when he was half asleep.

"Hello." Chase mumbled into the receiver, face still half pressed into the pillow.

"Good morning, Chase." House intoned, much too chipper for this time of the night.

Chase squinted blearily at his clock finally managing to make out the time. "It's not morning; it's the middle of the bloody night." Chase groused.

"You say tomayto, I say tomoto." House answered. He had set his alarm for 4:15 so he could get up and wake Chase up. It was so very much fun to screw the Aussie. Foreman got mad, Cameron got hurt, but Chase just took everything in stride. He had now made it his personal challenge to find something that would make the youngest duckling yell at him. Maybe lack of sleep would get Chase grouchy enough to do it. He had come close a few weeks ago. He had mentioned in front of the other ducklings that Chase had only been hired because of Daddy's international pull. Foreman had laughed and said he knew it. Cameron and smiled and indulged the idea and Chase had looked furious. But in true Chase style, he had said nothing, seething internally and then went and ran 8 miles over his dinner break. House had then sent him to go baby sit sick people in the clinic.

"What do want House? You told me I didn't have to be in until 10am today. You were going to let me get some sleep." Chase mumbled even worse. He was quickly loosing his valiant fight to stay awake.

"Stop whining. We have a patient admitted through the ER last night. He is presenting with neurological symptoms. I need you to go check him out."

"If it is neurological, then call a neurologist. Wake up Foreman."

"No, Foreman gets grumpy when you wake him up. Besides, he needs his beauty sleep more than you. I told them you would be there at 5 am. I left the file on my desk. So you had best get up and get ready. And wear something nice today. I'm tired of you looking like an orderly running around in scrubs." House threw in, hiding a laugh.

"Fine." Chase hung up the phone and sat up immediately. He knew if he stayed lying down he would fall back asleep. He rubbed his hand over his stubbly jaw and aching head. He had been grinding his teeth while he slept and his jaw neck and head ached. The inside of his eye lids felt like they had sand paper on them. After one sigh, he curse at House, he got up, got ready, and headed to work.

He was slightly late, he got there at 5:10 am but who was counting. He decided to walk to work, hoping the cool air and movement would help wake him up. They did somewhat, but not as much as he chocolate covered espresso beans he had been eating.

Chase looked over the file as he made his way to the ER. It looked pretty standard. Head trauma and mild neurological symptoms after a motor vehicle accident, which made no sense why House would be interested. But Chase would dutifully go and check on the patient like House told him to. Maybe, just maybe if he was good enough and obedient enough, House would finally forgive him. He knew he had made a mistake going to Vogler or rather taking Vogler up on his offer when the man had come to see him. But he had just been so angry at House for forcing him to face his father and so scared of losing his job he hadn't been able to think straight. Not that it mattered anymore. There was no longer anything even remotely appealing about his job. The only perk it still had was that it was 15,000k away from his father. But even that had a down side because he was ridiculously homesick, which was just adding to blue funk he had been in for the last few months.

He walked up to the duty nurse and smiled pleasantly at her. "I'm looking for Mr. Jenkins. Dr. House told me to come down and take a look at him."

Vera, an older nurse with at least 20 years of experience smiled back at him, hardened but still kind hearted. She pointed him towards one of the curtained off bays. Chase returned the smiled and left to go see his newest patient. He had taken House's advice and worn a pair of black trousers, a charcoal grey shirt with a dark tie. If House wanted him to look nice, he would look nice.

"Good morning, Mr. Jenkins, I'm Dr. Chase." He said as he walked in without looking up from the chart.

"Really," a small giggle, "call me Maxine." A fake nail bedecked hand was extended to him and he looked up into the face of a rather imposing drag queen.

Chase repeatedly cursed House in every language he knew as a constant litany inside his head as he pulled up a stool and sat down. "Maxine, then." He smiled, wishing he had stayed in his frumpy scrubs, damn House!

After an hour and a half of examining every bump, bruise, and imagined injury on the hypochondriac he-she, Chase was greatly relieved. Not only had 'it' spent the entire time flirting with him but Maxine had pinched his bum, and Chase was pretty sure she had gotten an erection while he was checking a cut on her leg. He wanted to go bathe in bleach. He felt even more sorry for the poor nurse, who was trying not to laugh.

House did this on purpose. He knew Chase hated people ogling him. If he didn't notice, that was one thing but this was just annoying and disgusting. Chase was very sensitive about being thought of as a mindless pretty boy. He hadn't been attractive while he was young and still didn't think he was that great looking but that didn't change the fact that he was sort of shy and insecure about people gawking at him. He wished he had never admitted such to House.

He handed the file back to Vera the nurse. "Here you go, ma'am, all done. Now I am going to go dip myself in the most caustic cleaner I can find." She laughed at him.

"What you need is a good night's sleep, Dr. Chase." She told him, concerned. Dr. Chase was a nice man for doctor. She didn't see him that often because he mostly stayed in the ICU but he did come down to help out occasionally. He was always polite and respectful of the nurses and was easy on the eyes. He wasn't high handed like Foreman, rude like House, or constantly looking for validation like Cameron.

"Tell House that." He sighed.

"I make it a point to never speak to House if it can be avoided." She was a wise woman.

"Maybe I need to employ that theory."

"Maybe you need to be employed in a different department."

"Maybe." He sighed. He used to love working with House. He greatly respected House and both his other colleagues. At least he respected their medical abilities if he didn't respect them as people. House could be very funny, when he wanted to be and the jibes didn't even bother him that much. They used to be in good fun and mostly about petty things like looks or his accent. But then things had changed. House made it quite clear that he had planned to fire Chase and that Chase had only gotten the job because Rowan had called in a favour. The fact that House had never actually respected him much less respected him now just plain hurt.

But he still didn't want to leave. Part was that Chase had been happy here. And part of it was that Chase had always had a pathologically hard time letting things go. He held grudges like crazy and horded joys, sorrows, and pain like they were wealth. He would definitely be the type of Captain, who went down with the ship always harbouring the small hope she could be saved. But he had learned a long time ago that most things couldn't be saved unless they wanted to be and that once something broke it was almost impossible to fix it again.

There was also the more petty and selfish side of him that wanted to stay to prove to his father that he could do it. Rowan had literally laughed in his face, when Robert had told him that he wanted to work for House. He had told his son that Robert wasn't good enough or smart enough to last a month with House. Rowan was more than willing to set his boy up with some cushy fellowship somewhere in Sydney or better yet if he would switch specialties, he would bring him on in the Rheumatology department at Monash University Hospital in Melbourne, where he worked. But Robert refused and went through with interviewing with House.

During the first face to face interview, House had mentioned that Rowan had called and Chase thought his head was going to explode. Chase hadn't bothered to finish the interview but politely thanked Drs Cuddy, Wilson, and House for their time then walked out. He guessed his father had won. Rowan had to have known that Robert wouldn't take any job that had been given to him through nepotism. Chase had sat in his hotel room that night, feeling sorry for himself and picking at his room service, when House had called him and offered him the fellowship. Chase had politely told him that he was no longer interested and he was sorry if he hadn't made that clear earlier, he would be returning to Sydney the next day. House had only said one thing to him. "Come on, the old man thought you couldn't do it on your own. Prove him wrong." Then House had hung up. A month later, Chase was working at PPTH with House.

The whole thing had been a double edged sword though. House had hired him because he realized there was trauma there but House found trauma interesting. So House picked and prodded trying to find the root of the cause, trying to find the wound, not to fix it but just to understand it. But Chase hated people being intrusive. He was extremely secretive because that was how he had been raised. He had spent his entire life covering up for other people's problems so hiding pain and weakness was as natural as breathing for him. House didn't like it and that was where they tended to lock horns, when House wanted to know something and Chase wanted to keep it secret.

House had found out a lot though, way more than Robert wanted. And now House was using it against him. Calling him names and belittling him in front of the other ducklings. Drawing attention to his faults and openly ridiculing his abilities. It made him feel like shit. He was quickly approaching how miserable he was before he left Australia to begin with. He didn't want to quit, but he also didn't know how much longer he could put up with this.

His self pity was interrupted by a shout of his name. Dr. Ramsey, the on call doctor in the ER needed help. There were four patients coming in, all with fevers well over 104 and rising. Chase flew into action, confident that he could at least be of some use down here.

Three hours later, six more patients had arrived with similar symptoms. Extremely high fevers, wet productive coughs, encephalitic, and meningitial presentations, but no rash, and nausea and vomiting were the universal ones. Two of the original patients were already dead. Chase had called them both about half an hour ago. All the ducklings were assembled and were waiting for House, who was late. Cuddy had assigned the cases to House without even waiting for him to complain.

Chase finally spoke up. "We might as well start on the blood work and CT scans while we wait for House. God only knows when he will get here."

"I'll set up the scans you guys get to work on getting us some blood." Foreman agreed, annoyed he hadn't been the one to suggest it.

"I think we should wait for House. He may have other tests he wants run." Good old Cameron, couldn't make a decision to save a drowning child. She wouldn't make a move until House told her to.

Before any of them could disagree, Chase's pager went off, saying nothing other than there was a Code and what room. He took off running towards the ICU. The other two stared at each other for a moment. It was never a good sign when Chase was the one that was paged first and was even worse when he took off at a dead run without telling them what was going on. It was Chase's job in the team to perform the mechanics of keeping patients alive. He ran the Codes, he generally performed the procedures, and he was the one who was usually waiting in recovery after surgeries. So if he was the first one paged, it meant someone was dying.

Within less than a minute, the other heard their pagers go off too and headed towards the correct room number. Chase was already barking orders. The ICU team moved in a smooth dance from months of working together. Foreman and Cameron were trying to figure out how to cut in, when Chase pulled out the paddles for the first shock. After that, the other two doctors pushed their way in to help their fellow duckling.

But it made little difference. Like the two before, no amount of trying would bring them back and Chase signed this third death certificate for the morning. It wasn't a good morning. Chase went to go talk to the family, Foreman went to set up scans, and Cameron stood staring at the dead body as the nurses finished disconnecting it from the machines. She just didn't understand how Chase and Foreman could be so nonchalant about the fact that someone just died.

She wanted to weep. She hated seeing loss even though as a doctor she should be immune from the pain. All she could think of was this poor man's family and friends. How they had woken up this morning and everything was fine and now everything was wrong. She wouldn't let herself cry in public but she would when she got home. Alone to her pillow she would release the pain of her and the teams' failure.

Foreman, he was angry. He took death a personal affront to his skill. Dying patients were annoying because they couldn't be controlled or bullied into doing what he wanted. He would be in a pissy mood for the rest of the day. Then he would go home, talk to his girlfriend and blame someone else. Because if a patient died, it was someone's fault and it was someone other than him. Chase ran the Code and the patient didn't live, so it must be Chase's fault. He already felt better.

Chase didn't react much at all. He was used to it. Being an intensivist, most of his patients were half dead to begin with. If you could still breathe on your own, than you weren't that interesting to him. But it wasn't like it didn't bother him. He just didn't show it. What was the point? He had done everything he could and it was just that man's time to go. Life and death were decided by God and they were things that couldn't be controlled by mortals. At least that was what he told himself as he went to face the weeping widow.

It took Chase almost an hour to get the family calmed down and answer all their questions. They were most put out that the body wouldn't be immediately returned to them but kept for an autopsy. He rubbed his hand over his face as he walked into the lab to find Cameron preparing the kits to take blood. It was only quarter after eleven and he was exhausted. While he was talking to the family had been the first time he had sat down for more than a few minutes since 4:30 in the morning.

Cameron looked over at Chase. He looked tired. "How did the family take it?" She asked.

"About how I expected. A lot of screaming, wailing, gnashing of teeth, and that was just me." He smiled at her, trying to lighten the mood.

"I can't believe you are joking about this. Those poor people just lost a member of their family. There lives will never be the same." She snapped. She hated the glib way Chase dealt with death. He obviously didn't understand how horrible it could be to loose someone you love.

"Have you never heard of gallows humour?" Chase asked.

"Yes, and I don't find it funny in the least. You should have more respect. If it was someone you cared about, would you want the doctors laughing about it behind your back? I know I wouldn't. One day you will learn how awful it is to lose someone." She sniffled.

'You'd be surprised what I know about loss sweetheart.' Chase thought but out loud he said. "Let's just go get the samples and start working on them." Why did he ever try having a conversation with this woman? Everything ended up about House, how you should love everyone and everything, or about how terrible her life had been. It made his head hurt.

They made their way to the ICU and Chase checked the vitals of each patient and filled out the charts as Cameron took blood. When they were with the last patient, Ms. Cooper, a 23 year old administrative assistant and bible school teacher House arrived. Cameron had just removed the needle when she saw him.

"Dr. House." She smiled pleasantly. He motioned for them to come out of the room to talk to them and Cameron dropped everything to answer his summons. Chase told her to go. He wasn't finished yet and didn't want to watch her flirt with their boss. But House wasn't about to be ignored.

"Chase, how is Mr. Jenkins?"

"You mean Maxine? She is fine. I left her case notes upstairs for you to sign off on, when you get the time." Chase answered pleasantly. He wasn't about to give House the satisfaction of seeing him mad. He turned back to the patient and noticed blood dripping from her arm. Cameron hadn't bothered to tape up the hole she had taken the blood from, too concerned with getting to House. Chase sighed and reached for the woman's arm to bandage it. While he was sliding her arm back under the covers, he felt a sharp prick in left index finger. He looked down and noticed that Cameron had left the flobodomy needle on the side of the bed in her hurry to get to House.

He grabbed the offending needle and threw it in the disposal bin, about to examine his finger when he heard loud angry beeps from across the hall. A fourth patient was coding. Without thinking, he and Cameron raced to aid the dying teenager.

TBC


	2. BriarRose

A/N: This chapter is much longer but a lot more happens. I think I finally found a new beta reader, but she didn't get a chance to look at this chapter, so all mistakes are mine and I blame them on poor schooling. :)

About Cameron, I don't hate her, I just hate what the writers did to her. Therefore, I tried to make her a little better in this chapter. We'll see how it works out.

Disclaimer: I don't own these people and a good thing too because I'm not very nice to them.

**Sleeping Beauty**

Over the next hour and a half, Chase, Cameron, and Foreman worked to stabilize the teenage boy. Just as his heart would come back into rhythm, he would seize and it would stop again. He also managed to throw up on Chase twice during their attempts to save him. Finally, the boy made it past 15 minutes with a normal heart beat and the team relaxed a bit. He was the first one they managed to bring back all morning. The bad part was that while they worked on the lad, Michael Finnley, four more patients arrived. All of them were children.

House called the team together in their conference room and began to assign tasks. It was 12:30 and Chase was starving, exhausted, and on his third shirt of the day. He flopped into the chair furthest from House and rested his head on his pillowed arms. Foreman and Cameron were talking amongst themselves, while they waited for House to address them. Chase was having a hard time thinking past food or sleep. At least he had remembered to grab a band aid for his finger. He had forgotten about it until after he had taken his gloves off and saw the combination of blood and talc mashed into a pasty mess on his finger. He had rinsed it off and covered it. It hadn't bled much, most of the blood pooled under the skin, leaving a dark splotch on the pad. The needle had clearly hit the main artery in his index finger. At least Ms. Cooper was HIV and Hep C negative. But right now that was the least of his concerns.

"Well, looks like we have something fun to play with for the day. That makes 14 cases so far, counting the three Chase let die this morning." House glanced over at his sleepy duckling in time to see Chase flip him the bird without even looking up. "We need to get the newest ones examined and tested and get as detailed of a history as possible. Princeton General will be sending over three more cases this afternoon if they are still alive." He examined his staff again quickly. Foreman had his arms crossed over his chest and his legs spread out, the picture of confidence. Cameron sat primly in her chair, looking over the newest files, dutiful as always. House had the sneaking suspicion Chase was asleep as he looked at the Aussie until House noticed that his eyes were still open. "Go grab lunch then, Cameron, start on the lab work and, Foreman, start researching what could cause this type of Meningitis and or encephalitis."

They all rose to leave and House stopped Chase. "Not you, limey, you go settle the newest patients and make sure there are beds in the ICU for the new ones arriving from PG."

"A nurse can do that." Chase pointed out. Most displeased at the idea of not getting any lunch or a nap.

"Yes, a nurse could, but I told you to do it and last time I checked you do what I tell you." He looked sternly at his youngest fellow. He thought for a moment that Chase would fight over it but he didn't. He ducked his head, gathered the files and walked out. House would have preferred to have been told off, that was all he wanted, for Chase to stand up to him and tell him that the Aussie was angry with him. But it hadn't happened yet and didn't look like it was likely to happen anytime soon. He had been waiting for months in fact and Chase rarely breathed a word of displeasure towards him but it was clear that the blonde was miserable.

Maybe that was Chase's biggest problem, that he was so afraid of being abandoned that he was afraid to tell people he was unhappy. It was a common affliction, Wilson suffered from it too, but still very annoying. House knew that Chase had grown up in a rather unpleasant home environment and had probably learned how to suck up ill treatment early. He was all for being stoic but past a certain point it just really wasn't healthy anymore. Chase needed to learn to express his displeasure in healthy ways rather than being a passive aggressive prick like he had done, when talking to Vogler.

It was cliché, but Chase was his own worst enemy. The Aussie seemed to have some innate desire to sabotage everything he tried to do. Chase had tried to show his father that he was an adult and that Rowan couldn't hurt him anymore but blew it by looking so damn upset through the whole thing. Chase wanted to keep his job but assed it up by agreeing to help Vogler. He wanted to be respected but was way to passive to ever stand up to anyone and earn their respect. It was sad really, to constantly be shooting yourself in the foot like that.

House had been floored when he found out it was Chase that had betrayed him. He would have been less shocked to walk without his limp again than to find out Chase had turned on him. But he had underestimated how much he had hurt Chase by forcing him to face his father. House sighed and propped his leg up. He hadn't realized at first, just how deeply he had wounded the Aussie. He had thought that Chase was just angry or upset in general. But soon it became clear that Chase wasn't eating, sleeping, and was screwing up at work. But what was most obvious, was that Chase now refused to deal with House at all. He was infinitely polite and professional but all the warmth and humour had fled their relationship. Even when he had messed up the angiogram, he was polite and professional, taking the blame and accepting responsibility rather than arguing it wasn't his fault like he should have.

The change hurt House more than he wanted to admit. House had spent a life time pushing people away and being just fine with it. But every so often there was that one person who he couldn't get rid of; that one person who was special and could see past his rudeness and see the person underneath. Wilson and Stacy had done it, then Chase though he hadn't made it to the level of Wilson yet. Cameron thought that she had, but she was wrong. She filled in what she wanted to see rather than what was really there. Wilson and Chase didn't try to change him, make him a better person, or tell him how to feel, they simply accepted and ignored.

For over a year, he and Chase had had a wonderful snipey friendship based on mutual respect and really sarcastic senses of humour. But House had forgotten that respect when Rowan had shown up and he had tried to force Chase into revealing things that the younger doctor hadn't wanted to. He knew there had been something there. A person didn't take a job 10,000 miles away from home in a country they had never even been to before unless they were moving for something or running away from something. House had quickly learned that Chase was a case of the latter. House had been painfully curious about what Chase was running from. So he had forced Chase's hand. He had learned much of what he wanted to know but it had also blown up in his face like an atom bomb. Things hadn't been the same between them since then. In fact, Chase hadn't been the same since then. House briefly wondered if Rowan had finally told his son he was sick.

Chase hadn't been able to tell House how upset he was but it was clear that he was devastated by House's betrayal of his trust. It really shouldn't have surprised House when Chase turned on him but damned if weren't. That was when the fun had really started. House wasn't going to fire the Aussie that was the whole point of not telling him about his father, because he didn't want Chase to leave. But he certainly wasn't going to let him get away with what he had done. So, House had started punishing him. It had started off benign, mostly petty stuff like mocking him or making him do busy work. But lately he had ramped up the abuse. He wanted Chase to tell him to stop, to learn that he could let people know he was not happy and they wouldn't kick him in the teeth for it. He wanted Chase to learn this the same way he wanted Foreman to learn how to question and Cameron to learn that some things couldn't be fixed. He wanted these things because it would make them all better doctors and better people but more importantly it would make them happier. But it was painfully obvious that Chase wasn't happy.

At first, House had wondered how long Chase could take it. House wasn't letting him have any time off and was being nasty to him. But the duckling had held up well. It wasn't until House had mentioned the call from his father in front of the other ducklings that Chase finally seemed to break.

Two weeks ago.

Chase stood in front of House's desk waiting to be acknowledged. He was tired even though House had let him go home last night for six whole hours. But it didn't offset the fact that he had only had one hour of sleep every twelve hours for the last four days before and he had so viciously exhausted he was beyond tired and in the giddy light headed stage just before you start hallucinating. He felt a little better but not much.

House finally looked up at him, where he stood clutching a letter in his right hand, the left in his pocket. House eyed him critically. Chase was standing slightly skewed to the right, which meant that his bad knee was bothering him. Not surprising since Chase had bolted off to go run during dinner last night. He was also hunched over and pale but looked tidy and professional. So he had cleaned up but hadn't gotten much sleep. Chase had been avoiding him like the plague lately so he was interested what was so important that the Aussie would seek him out.

"What do want, junior?" He knew it annoyed Chase when people called him junior. He didn't like any reference to his father.

"To give you this." Chase handed him a sealed envelope with his name written in block letters on the front.

"What is it?" Normally Cameron was the one who went through his mail and tried to pick out good cases, not Chase.

Chase sighed. "A letter tendering my resignation. I already gave a copy to Cuddy." Chase wouldn't meet his boss's eyes.

House ripped the letter into small pieces and threw it back at the duckling, his stomach tightening at the fact that Chase was so miserable that he had driven him away but also perversely pleased that he had managed to get under the seemingly unflappable Aussie's skin. He had wanted to punish the duckling, to make him pay for his betrayal, but he hadn't meant to drive him away completely. "You, sparky, are under contract and can't leave until I say so or your Fellowship is up. And I'm not letting you out of it. You are stuck here for another few months so suck it up."

"Why, you don't want me here? Why not just let me leave? Why are you doing this?" Chase pleaded, pride forgotten at the prospect of having to endure several more months of this.

'I want you here, Chase. You are a good doctor and I care about you as a friend. You made a mistake but so did I, why can't we just burry the hatchet and go back to the way things were? I don't want you to be alone when your father dies and I'm worried about how sad you seem. I can see that I am hurting you, but you won't tell me to stop and I won't stop until you do.' Was what House wanted to say to the slumped young man in front of him. But instead he said. "Because, I can. Besides, you should be more than used to living someplace where you aren't really wanted." House was angry that Chase made him hurt, so he lashed out at the Aussie.

Chase's shoulders hunched even further and he crouched down to pick up the torn up pieces of his letter. House internally winced in sympathy at how much it would probably hurt the blonde's knee to stand back up. House wasn't sure what type of injury Chase had but from the type of brace he wore when he ran and the types of activities he enjoyed not to mention the constant popping, House guessed it was probably at least one damaged ligament maybe two and a torn up meniscus. He had also noticed that Chase had scars from having it scoped at least once before. "You aren't going to let me go, are you?" Chase whispered.

"Nope. Or more to the point, I'm not going to let you run away." House paused. That was dangerously close to an admission that he cared about Chase. He needed to deflect the duckling before he started to figure it out. "It must be tough for you, to realize that after everything you have gone through and everything you have accomplished you are right back where you started, having your life dictated by the whims of a surly older doctor? You are a walking example of the proverb that 'the more things change the more they stay the same.'" House leveled his intensivist with a glare, barely managing to catch his eyes. Chase had expressive eyes. They say that the eyes are the window to the soul, well Chase's were like a 50' flat screen TV. His despair and helplessness playing across it in high definition and surround sound, just the way House liked it. He watched it, half reveling in it and half repulsed by it.

House knew what Chase would do next. He would leave and swallow his anger and sadness. He would close himself off and become like an actor playing a character. He had several, the joking goofball, the lazy slacker, the concerned doctor. It made it very hard to tell what Chase was really like. It had taken House almost a month to realize when Chase was doing this. But once he had seen it, he could always tell, from the way Chase wouldn't mean his eyes to way he flattened his voice to sound less foreign. His purposeful suppression of self into a non threatening, non controversial character was hard to watch. Especially since House had seen what a smart, witty, and nice person Chase really was. It made him angry.

"I told Taylor you would cover a shift in the ICU today, so go make your self useful." House dismissed him.

"Yes, Dr. House." Chase turned and dejectedly walked off.

An hour later, Cuddy interrupted him, Wilson, and Stacy having lunch. Things were still awkward around Stacy and House but having Wilson there helped smooth things over. He could almost pretend that nothing had changed. "Dr. House. We need to start asking for résumés. The board is not going to sit back and watch you drag your feet like you did looking for Dr. Cameron's replacement."

"I'm not interviewing anyone." House stated blandly.

"You plan to pick a name out of hat?"

"It worked with Foreman."

"Dr. House, the work your team has done recently had garnered the hospital a great deal of good will in the medical community. I am not willing to squander that because you are too lazy and ill tempered to find another fellow. Either you start finding prospective candidates or I will choose one for you."

"No you won't. Chase isn't leaving."

"He gave me a letter of resignation this morning. That normally means someone is leaving. He agreed to stay around until we found a replacement. Kind of him considering."

"Considering what, that he snitched to you and Vogler on me? Or kind considering that it gives you and Stacy a few more weeks to admire his ass while he's working out?"

"Chase resigned?" Wilson finally piped in.

"He tried to, I told him no. He was under contract and has to stay."

"You do realize, Greg, if he wants to leave you can't make him stay?" Stacy pointed out.

"What about the contract. That covenant not to compete thingy? Doesn't that say he can't leave and go work for someone else?"

"Covenants not to compete are very hard to enforce. The contract is designed more to protect intellectual property. For example if he discovered the cure for cancer while working here, he couldn't take it to another hospital."

"Then what the hell is the point of the stupid thing being there?" House was becoming agitated. He had been sure he had Chase in a vice.

"They are really just a hold over from the 30's. I could stop him from getting a job at Princeton General or Harris Methodist but if he wanted to jump the boarder into New York and work for St. Jude's or something, it wouldn't be enforceable. And we don't even need to talk about if he went home. There is no way a New Jersey contract would be binding in," She paused. "Where the hell is he from anyway? Is he English or Australian?"

"English." "Australian." House and Wilson answered simultaneously.

"He is from Australia. He grew up in Melbourne but went to school in Sydney I believe." Cuddy clarified.

"So you are saying that I can't use his contract to make him stay?" House asked.

"No, you can't. There is this pesky little thing called the Constitution that disallows forced servitude. I thought everyone who made it through second grade in elementary school knew that one." Stacy answered.

"Aha. But Chase didn't go to second grade in elementary school. He went through grade two in primary school. He wouldn't know the Declaration of Independence from a Denny's menu, so we are safe."

"And you really believe that someone who has a trust fund the size of this hospital's endowment doesn't have an army of lawyers ready to get him out of the contract if he wants it?"

"I'm sure he does but that is totally beside the point. He is not leaving." House stated.

"He said he wanted to leave." Wilson countered.

"He doesn't. He is just trying to prove a point. I'm not sure what that point is, but he has made it and will now go back to normal." House answered.

"Don't think less of me if I don't trust you and start looking for applicants." Cuddy said.

"Don't bother." Wilson said, looking at his friend. "House won't let him go, even if Chase really wanted to." Wilson realized that this had nothing to do with spite, but with House not being about to admit that he cared about Chase. If it came down to it, House would swallow his pride to get Chase to stay. But he also agreed with House that Chase probably didn't really want to leave. You don't fight as hard as he did to keep a job, then walk away from it. Something must have spooked the youngest duckling and made him try to run. It was a rash, poorly thought out, and self destructive decision. It was pure Chase.

"He likes him too much to let him leave." Stacy added, critically eyeing her ex.

Cuddy nodded and walked off. She would trust the two people who knew House better than anyone.

Present

But House had been right. Chase hadn't brought up leaving since then. That had been his last act of defiance. Now, the Aussie was completely compliant. It was annoying. Maybe House had to step up the intensity a little bit. He looked out at his ducklings in the hall and watched them disperse. He leaned back and waited.

When Foreman and Cameron returned, House kindly agreed to take Chase his lunch. Cameron smiled at him, assuming him to be kind, caring, and worried about Chase's welfare. Foreman watched suspiciously, assuming House was going to poison his chief rival. House, remained in his office and paged the youngest duckling to return. He waved Chase to sit across from him at his desk and opened the white container to reveal a very rare tuna steak and broccoli, on top of pasta, no sauce. Ick! Of course he wouldn't have ordered a burger with fries.

"How are our new arrivals doing? I trust you haven't killed any of them yet." House said as he cut into the tuna. It was barely cooked and looked horrible to House.

"They are all settled and their blood is waiting in the lab for Cameron to get started." Chase ground his teeth, trying not to salivate at the site of his lunch. It was 1:30 and he hadn't had anything to eat other than espresso beans since seven the night before.

"Why didn't you start the blood work?"

"Dr. Taylor was on lunch break and two of the patients' O2 stats were unstable. I didn't want to go too far." He tried to ignore the fact that his stomach felt like it was trying to digest itself.

House got up and limped to the refrigerator and pulled out some mayonnaise, dumping it on the tuna steak. That was better. He looked at Chase and noticed the Aussie looked like he was going to cry. Chase hated mayonnaise even more than he hated peanut butter. "So why are you here now? Shouldn't you still be up there hand holding and watching numbers blip across screens?"

"Taylor came back from lunch just before you called." Chase was now utterly depressed by the destruction of what should have been his lunch.

"Fine. Go work on taking histories and calming down relatives." House was now enjoying the meal.

"Can I get some lunch first?" Chase stupidly asked. Before he would have just gone and taken a lunch and then asked for forgiveness if he were caught. But he didn't want to risk House's wrath anymore.

"I don't pay you to eat." Chase rose and headed back towards the ICU, contemplating eating his own tongue.

Luckily, one of the nurses had brought lasagna for everyone and was more than willing to share with Chase. Hah! House couldn't control everything Chase thought as he read through the charts and wolfed down some lunch.

The rest of the day went about like the beginning. They lost two more patients but one had started to wake up, Ms. Cooper, the administrative assistant. Foreman and Chase were in her room, trying to get her to respond when she finally opened her eyes. She looked straight up at Chase.

"Are you an angel?" She mumbled. Somewhere in the distance, Foreman snorted.

Chase looked over each shoulder and answered. "No wings, guess I'm not an angel. Actually, I'm Dr. Chase." He pointed at Foreman. "That's Dr. Foreman."

"You're beautiful." She mumbled, still staring glassy eyed at the blonde.

"And you have a very high fever. How are you feeling." Chase questioned. His fellow duckling was never going to let him live this down.

"I'm thirsty." She mumbled.

Chase held a straw to her lips. "Your blood sugar is a bit high. The IV fluid has glucose and sucrose in it. But it is better to keep you a little too high than a little too low." He smiled at her again. She had pretty eyes but the rest of her was bleh. He moved out of the way to let Foreman examine her.

When they were through, Foreman followed him out of the room. "Oh Dr. Chase, you look like an angel. Will you put on wings and do a striptease for me?" Foreman said in a falsetto.

"Shut up."

"Oh Dr. Chase. I have a pain right here in my heart, will you examine it for me."

"You're as bad as House." Chase countered, but couldn't help a smile from creeping to his face. Sometimes he actually liked Foreman.

"Dr. Chase, will you marry me?" Foreman batted his eyes at the Aussie.

"No way, mate. I could get much better than you."

"No you couldn't. I am far beyond the quality you could achieve, white boy." Foreman countered.

"Right. Why would I want a mere fellow if I could have someone like Wilson, the head of a department?"

"You so could not get Wilson. Maybe House, but not Wilson."

"I could too get Wilson, and I wouldn't want House."

"I bet you $50 you couldn't get Wilson." They stopped at the stairwell and Chase looked over at Foreman.

"Yeah, you are probably right. He would never cheat on House and I wouldn't want to be a home wrecker."

"Why are we arguing over whether you could get Wilson into a homosexual love affair?"

"I haven't slept in almost 24 hours, what is your excuse?"

"Communicable dementia caught from House I think." Foreman answered.

"Fare enough." Chase agreed.

As the day one dragged into day two, all of the ducklings were drained and exhausted. They had lost three more patients but five more trickled in. That made 23 total and 6 dead, roughly a quarter didn't survive. All of them had pneumonia and viral meningitis and encephalitis. Some were doing better and some were doing worse. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to who survived and who didn't but it did seem that if they survived the initial crash, they usually seemed to get stronger.

At seven thirty in the morning, 27 hours after House had woken him up at home, Chase was running on one of the treadmills in the physical therapy gym. He had been there for 45 minutes and it was the first extended break he had had since he got in yesterday morning. He knew he should probably have taken a nap but running helped him to relax. It was like a form of kinetic meditation for him. It got rid of a lot of the tension he was carrying and allowed him to let his mind wander and not think about anything specific.

Not thinking right now was good, so was being alone. House had gone home last night but Foreman and Cameron had stayed with him. Cameron was weepy and sullen from all the deaths and Foreman was pissy and snappy. Chase tried to avoid them but it wasn't easy. Plus he felt guilty as all hell from not doing a better job of saving those 6 patients. He had run the code on all of them and they had all died. He had no desire to spend another day sitting down with families explaining how "there was nothing they could do." "He is in a better place." "It was just his time." Ect. And if House made one more comment to him about it, he was going to punch the older man in the face.

He finished his work out and went to stretch. His back and knees hurt from standing up so much the day before and from sprinting up and down flights of stairs to get from one ICU to the other. He stretched out and headed for the showers. He had less than 15 minutes to get ready and get back upstairs for rounds.

He stripped quickly and went in the shower. This early in the morning he was alone and he took a moment to enjoy the soothing feel of the spray on his tired body. Just as he was lathering up his hair he heard House call his name. Damn it! Didn't he ever get a moments peace? Soon the vision of the man joined the sound of his voice, followed by Cameron and Foreman. Everyone in the room was shocked to see the youngest duckling naked, accept for House. Chase didn't know whether he wanted to drown himself or House.

"See, Foreman, you owe me $50. He is a natural blonde." House said. Chase turned as red as a tomato but he didn't hide. He wouldn't give House the satisfaction. Instead he rinsed his hair out and applied conditioner, trying not to act as uncomfortable as he felt.

"And you owe Wilson $50 because he does blush all the way down to his ass cheeks, so I'll just pay him." Foreman answered.

"I bet Cameron is too." House mentioned as he looked at the female doctor who was doing her best to look anywhere but at Chase.

"Dr. House!" She almost yelped as she blushed even more than Chase did.

"Is it wrong of me to get turned on by a fantasy of seeing Cameron and Chase together in a shower?" House asked no one in particular.

"YES!" Cameron and Chase answered in unison. House wasn't sure which one of them was more fun to sexually harass.

"What do you want, Dr. House, that couldn't wait till my break was over?" Chase asked, trying not to grind his teeth in frustration.

"Patients, how are they doing?"

"I left full reports on all of them on your chair." Chase rinsed his hair out.

"Guess I forgot to look." House lifted up Chase's bottle of conditioner, reading the label. "J Crew, no wonder you always smell so yummy." He said and reached over to pet Chase's hair.

Chase batted House's hand away and snapped. "Don't touch me!"

"Testy aren't we? Maybe if you spent your break times eating breakfast lunch and dinner rather than running, you wouldn't be so snippy or so skinny." House advised as he pointed to Chase's ribs, which were visible through his skin.

"Maybe if you gave me time to eat." Chase shot back and grabbed his towel to dry off.

"Perhaps. If all of the sicklies are stable for now, I want you and Foreman to head over to Princeton General and advice them on what we know so far. We also need samples from their patients."

Foreman and Chase both looked about to protest but Foreman beat him to the punch. "Wouldn't it make more sense to send Cameron." House wasn't quite sure if Foreman wanted to stay or just didn't want to go with Chase.

"No, it doesn't. The chief of the ER staff's name is Schlieffen and Chase is German so he should go.

"I thought I was British?" Chase questioned.

"Your mother is Dutch your father is Czech, those countries might as well be part of Germany so ipso facto you are German."

"Maybe in 1941." Chase mumbled.

"Seriously, House. Send Cameron." Foreman tried to pull the conversation back to important things.

"Cameron is the best in the lab, you are useless so far, and junior isn't having much luck saving patients so that leaves you two with the duty. Besides, Cameron and I can't have a lurid affair with you two hanging around. It just makes me fantasizes about Chase's ass." Cameron couldn't hide her smile and Chase couldn't cover the sound of his teeth grinding together. "Also, if you want some type of medical reason, Chase has the infectious disease experience at least one year of residency before you switched to your stupid little intensivist thingy and the most experience with this in the early stages and can help them pick it out."

"Fine, I'll be ready to leave in a few minutes." Chase answered.

"Good. And by the way, I can now see why Cuddy and Stacy like to use you as eye candy, while they exercise. You do have a very nice body. I wholly agree with Stacy. It would be nice to eat a fruit and wine platter off your abs. You need a tan though." House commented, knowing it would make Chase unbelievably uncomfortable.

"Get out House." Chase state coolly, trying to find some hole to crawl into.

After the others left, Chase leaned against a sink and hung his head. He didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or punch is fist into the mirror. He had to admit the serious comedic value of what House had done but he was also pissed as hell at him. But worse, it hurt that House had so little respect for him that he would walk in on him in the shower. He knew Chase hated people staring at him and this was the second time in two days that House had found some way to degrade Chase by turning into something to be ogled. He never would have done something like this to Foreman and he would loose his job for doing it to Cameron but with Chase, no one cared.

Chase sighed and continued getting ready. He didn't know what to do. He didn't want to stay anymore, but he couldn't quit either. However, he was way too tired to worry about it right now so he finished getting ready and headed out to find Foreman.

Within half an hour he and Foreman were en route to the biggest Hospital in the area, Princeton General. It was a standard county hospital, square, dingy, and smelling of antiseptic and vegetable soup. PPTH was much newer and nicer. Within two street lights, Chase had dozed off in the passenger seat of Foreman's big, black Mercedes SUV. Foreman didn't mind at all. His fellow duckling looked worn out from well over 24 hours of constant stress and no sleep. Both he and Cameron had grabbed a few Zs in House's office last night, but Chase had been too busy in the ICU to sleep. He was feeling kind today, or just tired, and pulled into a Starbucks and got some good coffee for himself and his companion. Chase didn't stir.

When they reached the other hospital, Foreman called Chase's name and managed to rouse him. "Here man, I got you a double mocha latte with an extra shot of espresso."

"Sounds caloric." Chase mumbled, trying to pull his wits together.

"It's low fat milk and there is chocolate in it." Foreman shook it in front of the Aussie. Chase loved chocolate.

"Ok." Chase took it and smiled gleefully. Foreman couldn't understand why Chase would drink vile black tea but you had to make coffee taste like coco to get him near it, unless he had no choice.

"Why do you put up with House treating you like pet?" Foreman broached the subject he had been thinking about for a while now. Both he and Cameron had noticed how mean House was starting to get towards Chase. He agreed that Chase needed to punished, preferably fired, but House's bullying was just petty and unproductive.

"I don't really have a choice in the matter do I?" Chase answered as he sipped his coffee. It wasn't bad, but it needed sugar.

"You could resign."

"I tried. House threw it back in my face." Chase looked down as they walked. It was late summer and unseasonably warm and wet. It almost reminded him of home.

"Well be firm, tell him again. Write a letter." Foreman suggested.

"I did. That was what I meant. I gave him a letter of resignation and he tore it up and threw it in my face. Then he refused to let me out of my contract." He sounded dejected remembering the scene.

"Why would he do that?" Foreman wondered.

"Maybe because he really is in love with me. I don't know, because he is an ass." Chase groused.

"You really should stand up to him. Yell at him. Tell him he is a self righteous prick and that you aren't going to put up with his shit anymore. Maybe then he will stop." That was how Foreman dealt with House most of the time. Unbeknownst to the elder doctor, that was exactly what House wanted Chase to do.

"Right. Like that ever works. When was the last time yelling at House ever accomplished anything?"

"I guess, but you have to do something. He is going to run you into the ground then kick dirt on your prone body."

"At least then I'll get to lie down." Chase tried to sound cheerful even though in fact Foreman's words hit way too close to home.

The two spent most of the day making rounds with the staff of the other hospital. Chase was appalled at the state of their ICU and Foreman was sickened by the lack of individual care given to the patients. Chase collected blood samples from those that were sick while Foreman gave the ER doctors a brief run down of what to look for. It was a long, difficult and trying day. The best part was that they were away from House the entire day.

By the time they piled into Foreman's car to go back to their own hospital, both of them were completely exhausted. Chase hasn't sat down for more than a few moments at a time and Foreman's voice was raw from talking. The elder doctor was in a particularly crumby mood because one of the patients had vomited and hit his shoe. Chase thought he was being a cry baby about it. He got puked on at least once a week in the ICU it seemed and had been tagged at least four times in the last three days. Foreman was just bitter because he hadn't had the forethought to change into scrubs like Chase had.

Foreman stopped the car in front of the back entrance and looked at Chase. "I'm going home. Take the samples up and I suggest you do the same."

"Yes sir, Lord Foreman, sir." Chase snapped. He completely agreed with the older doctor but he had spent all day listening to Foreman tell people what to do and was just plain tired of hearing the other man's voice. He slid out of the car and Foreman sped off. Lucky him.

Chase made his way up to the pathology lab to drop off the samples. If he was really lucky he wouldn't run into House and he could sneak out when he was finished. He lazily took the lift rather than the stairs and walked right into House as the doors opened.

"Nice to have you back. Where is your cohort?"

"He went home." Chase stuttered. He had been off in his own little world, dreaming about his bed and was quite startled to see his boss.

"Good, he looked tired. I sent Cameron home too so those samples will have to sit on ice till tomorrow." House tilted his head sideways and looked at his youngest duckling. Of them all, Chase looked the worse. His hair was unruly because he had missed his normal haircut. His clothes were rumpled and his tie was tucked into his pocket. Every line of the blonde's body projected exhaustion and defeat as House spoke again. "With them both gone, you had better go settle that case you sent over this afternoon."

Chase slumped against the wall as House walked away. It was 7:30 at night and he had been working for 39 hours straight. He was about to start crying. But for lack of any defense against House's ire, Chase dropped off the samples, changed into fresh scrubs and headed to the ICU to check on the 71 year old deacon that he had transferred over from Princeton General. He was case number 24.

The night went much as the one before. Two more patients died, a husband and wife both in their late sixties. Their 8 children where in the waiting room and kept him there for almost an hour with their wailing. He was almost thankful when there was another code and he could leave. That person survived. By six the next morning, Chase had had enough. He and Dr. Gardner, the other ICU doctor on call, were both up to their eyeballs in work and had been running from code to code all night. His dinner had been a handful of stale shredded wheat Dr. Gardener had in her locker and the only time he had sat down was when he was talking to the family.

At 6:15 he called Cameron and asked her to come in and help. She was more than happy to, for which he almost dropped to his knees in thanks. She arrived just as he was finishing up the paper work on the dead wife. She saw him rub his hand over his face and noticed how awful he looked. What she didn't know was that he felt just as awful as he looked. His back, shoulders, and neck ached from being hunched over all night. His head was starting to pound from hunger and exhaustion. And his eyes were so dry from wearing the same contacts for two days that he could barely see. Cameron knocked on the glass and smiled at him.

"I brought you breakfast. I figured you didn't have time to get any." She waved a bag from his favourite bagel shop.

"You are a saint, woman, thank you." He wanted to kiss her. For all that she drove him nuts and made him want to turn away from women completely because of her ridiculous school girl crush on House and incessant poking into his personal life, Cameron could be a really decent person. She had taken it upon herself to play the den mother to her group of men, which usually drove him to distraction, but right now her thoughtfulness was exactly what he needed.

"You're welcome. How did things go last night?" She questioned as she followed him to the nurses' station.

"Not too bad. We had 11 codes but only lost two. But that is eight deaths out of twenty-four cases. Not great odds. Did you and House come up with anything yesterday while Foreman and I were gone?" He questioned. He dropped off the dead woman's file and told the nurse he to page him if they needed him. She smiled at him. Her name was Carol. She was the oldest nurse in the ICU and treated him like a son. She was also one of the best nurses in the hospital and was often responsible for making residents and med students rethink their careers with her blunt manner. She and April were his two favourite nurses. Carol because she was good and always said what needed to be said and April because she was from the British Virgin Islands and always brought him tea when he ran out. He tried to live by the rule his father taught him. 'Treat every nurse like she knows more than you because it is entirely conceivable that she does.' A little sexist but still held a ring of truth.

"Nothing yet. We narrowed down that all of the patients go to the same church. They were on some sort of religious retreat last weekend at some private lake about 80 miles from here. Beyond that we don't know squat."

"The pneumonia seems to be responding to the antibiotics but the meningitis and encephalitis have got to be viral. The patients aren't coughing as much but they are still seizing, screaming, and hurling all over the place." They reached their own conference room and Cameron put on a pot of coffee and Chase retrieved his lime marmalade from the ice box. Cameron turned her nose up at it. She had tried it once and thought it tasted like raw limes mixed with metal shavings. She didn't care for it.

As they enjoyed their breakfasts, Cameron turned over to her fellow duckling. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you look terrible."

"I don't know how I could take that in a good way." He smiled to show he was kidding. It was his fake smile. Like the professional and reassuring one he plastered to his face when dealing with a scared family or the kind one when dealing with a patient. There was also the friendly one he gave to the rest of the staff so they didn't think he was a stuck of prig like they thought of Foreman. He couldn't remember the last time he had smiled for real. Part was because he was just so run down from work and fighting with House. However, part was also because he had stopped taking his anti-depressants a few months ago and his depression was starting to flare up with a vengeance. He felt completely despondent and was helpless to do anything about it. He was too afraid to ask Wilson to refill his prescription because Wilson was House's friend, why would he want to help Chase. The sadness and the guilt were like a physical pain in his chest and House comments about him letting patients die were not helping him.

"When was the last time you slept?" Cameron pulled his attention back.

"What is today?" He was trying to divert her attention with jokes. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate her concern it was just that he thought she was nosey for asking.

Cameron had known Chase long enough to realize that she wasn't likely to get a straight answer out of him. He was worse than House about evading personal questions. She still remembered trying to figure out what was going on between him and his father. It had been worse than pulling teeth. He had nearly ripped her head off, at least for him it was like ripping someone's head off. Chase was a pretty mellow guy generally speaking. She had only wanted to know because she was worried about him. She wanted to help him. It wasn't right that a father and son should be so estranged, especially when they seemed so much alike. One day maybe he would tell her. She always figured that Chase would be a lot happier if he opened up more. It was sometimes tough to be friends with him. He was too reserved and evasive. It was like he didn't trust anyone and his lack of trust was hurtful to her. She had always been a good friend to him. She was the only one who had tried to talk to him when he was upset about his father.

But none of that was important now. "That long, huh? Why don't you go take a nap in the office? I'll let do your rounds for you." She offered. Trying to bridge the gap between them that had existed since the whole Vogler mess. She didn't hold grudges and didn't want Chase to think she was mad at him. She understood why he had done the things he had. He was clearly House's least favourite and would have been the one fired. House respected Foreman and had feelings for her. Chase was a nonentity, at least as she saw it.

"Thank you so much, Cam. I take back almost every mean thing I ever said about you."

"Almost?" She questioned as he collected their trash.

"I'm sorry. I still think you look better in your glasses." He smiled and slowly rose from his chair. Finally sitting down had made him unbelievably groggy.

"Freak." She giggled and gave him a gentle push towards House's office and the comfy chair.

Chase gratefully sank into the chair and propped his feet up. He heard Cameron leave and closed his eyes. This had been one of the most civil conversations he and Cameron had had in months. He missed her sometimes. He missed the fun confident doctor that used to work with them. Lately all he saw was an insecure, hovering, mother hen, with a school girl crush on her boss. She was better than that. But also, he just couldn't look at her the same after Rowan left. The pain of her siding with Rowan still stung.

He dropped off quickly and was dead to the world until House arrived. House walked into his office approximately one hour after Chase had fallen asleep. He looked at his dozing duckling and thought that the younger doctor looked like shit. But worse, was the awful, shiver worthy sound of the Aussie grinding his teeth in his sleep. It made House's skin crawl when he heard it.

"Wake up, you worthless git. I don't pay you to sleep." He roared, just to stop that sound.

Chase bolted upright and glanced around, looking for the emergency. When he realized what happened he glared at his boss. "House." It sounded more like an accusation than a greeting.

"Good morning, Sparky. Go do rounds." Chase rose slowly from the chair, every muscle sore.

"Of course, Dr. House." The Aussie tried to sweep out of the room with as much dignity as he could must after having been scared awake and moving as slow as a man three times his age.

At 9am, Foreman arrived and the department started brainstorming again. They came up with nothing new. Finally House sent them all off to pour over the histories and lab results, while Chase went back to check on the patients. Foreman took this opportunity to corner his boss.

"House, I don't know what type of game you are playing, but why don't you just fire the kid."

"I assume you are referring to Chase." House asked, peeved. He had an idea floating around in the back of his head and wanted to let it filter to the top in quiet.

"Yes. Why won't you just let him leave. You are working him to death."

"Ah Foreman, I didn't think you cared about him."

"Hey, I have nothing against roughly half of his 20 different personalities but and pretty soon he is going to screw something up and someone is going to die. You may not like him but do you really want to cost him his license?"

"So what do you suggest?" Now he was interested.

"Just let him go home. You can find someone better than him in a heart beat. Someone whose specialty actually has something to do with diagnostics."

"Duly noted. Now go back to work."

"You aren't even going to consider it?"

"Considered and disregarded. I don't care what that pissant told you, but Chase is staying."

"In my opinion, you are " Foreman started.

"When I want your opinion I'll tell you what it is." House yelled and Foreman knew better than to question him further.

Instead, he gestured for Cameron to join him in the lab. As they sat down he looked at her. "That was weird."

"House doesn't like people telling him what to do." She apologized for their boss.

"No, not that. I mean that he won't let Chase to leave. Think about it. When I got that job offer in LA, he said I could go no questions asked. When you resigned, he didn't even try to stop you. But Chase, he won't let out of his sight. I wonder why he is so adamant to keep the kid here." Foreman mused.

"He didn't want me to go." Cameron pointed out, annoyed that House would be more instant about Chase staying than her.

"No, he didn't want you do go, but he didn't pitch a blue-bloody fit about it like he is doing with Chase. It is just odd."

"I suppose." Now she was wondering why House hadn't tried harder to get her to stay. It wasn't fair she was much nicer to him than Chase was. House and Chase were always fighting with each other. They were constantly sniping and being rude and sarcastic to one and other. House would throw his ball down the hall and tell Chase to fetch. Chase would bring it back but only after dipping it in water. Then House would give him a lint covered animal cracker out of his pocket. Chase would pulverize the biscuit and put it in House's coffee. Or once House dipped the ends of Chase's hair in red Jell-O and dyed it pink. So Chase loosened the casters on the bottom of House's chair so when the elder doctor sat down he kept rolling all over the place. It was childish. She never acted like that towards her boss. So why would House want to keep someone who acted like that?

As the morning wore on, so did the last of Chase's nerves. He was beyond tired and into the realm of ridiculously exhausted. His neck was stiff as hell and his brain felt like it was four sizes too big for his head. He had given up and taken his contacts out, switching to his glasses, which he never wore at work. He also felt sort of dizzy and his chest felt tight like he had been in a smoky pub. He ignored it though, assuming it was all just from being tired.

At lunch time, Chase trudged up the stairs to House's office to let him know they had lost another patient. It was a six year old boy, who was one of the last to arrive. His fever had spiked at over 105 just before his heart stopped. Chase was thoroughly depressed from the turn of events and wanted nothing more than to take a hot shower to get the knots out of his neck and then curl up in bed and sleep for a week. He had his hands tucked into his pockets, a file under his arm, and his head down as he approached the office door. He was so tired and distracted that he walked head first into the glass door with a resounding crack and a muttered curse.

"I see Helen Keller is home." House sniped to Wilson, who was also sitting in his office.

Chase rubbed his head and opened the door correctly this time, trying not to blush. He handed House the file of the most recently deceased. "Jacob Tucker, six years old, admitted early yesterday morning."

"Dead or better?" House asked.

"Dead." Chase intoned evenly. It was never easy to give up on a child. Not that it was easy to give up trying to save anyone, but children where the hardest.

"You're batting a thousand today. Isn't this dead person number nine? Maybe I should send the janitor up to take your place." House commented to his slump shouldered doctor. Before, this would have been taken lightly. Chase would have had some glib come back but not now. Now Chase was exhausted and depressed. House's words cut too deep and hurt like a whip lash.

"I'm sorry. I did the best I could." Chase said quietly without looking up. House looked at Wilson past his dejected duckling and Wilson had a very disapproving look on his face. This wasn't like Chase at all, not even the newer more compliant Chase that had evolved after Vogler. It was normal for Chase to not argue, but it was not normal for him to take a shot at his medical skill without even flinching. Yester morning, House had received a middle finger for making a similar comment. House wondered if he had really broken his duckling down completely. He wasn't sure if Chase was stating a fact or pleading to be told it was true.

"We know you did your best, Chase. House was just being an ass as usual. He gets that way when he can't figure out a problem." Wilson interjected with an even more pointed look at his friend. Chase nodded his head without looking up. The sunshine from the window behind House's desk was making his eyes hurt.

"How are the others doing?" House questioned.

"Stable for now. I'll go check on them again." He turned to walk out.

"Chase." House called after him. "I'll send Foreman. Sit down and get some sleep." Chase looked like he might refuse but in the end he nodded his head and sat down in a large chair. House hoped that Chase didn't think he was insinuating that Foreman had a better chance of saving patients, on the contrary he far and way had more trust in Chase when it came to critical patients. That was, after all, the younger doctor's specialty.

Wilson left and House pulled the blinds closed, darkening the office. He would let Chase sleep for a few hours, then send him back in the fray. Unfortunately, House really did need the Aussie there. However, not 30 minutes past before Cameron had Chase paged to return to the ICU. The youngest duckling was up and running before House even registered the sound of the beeper. He decided that he would tag along for this one, but at a slower pace.

When House arrived in the ICU, Cameron, Foreman, and Chase were working on an older man, the one sent over yesterday. The man's O2 stats were in the tank, his respirations were nonexistent, and his heart rhythm and blood pressure were dropping dangerously low. House watched his team work to save the man's life. For once, they all ceded to Chase, even Foreman, which was rare. They worked like a well oiled machine and he was insanely proud of them, though he would never admit it.

They were all so different. Foreman was the front man, the loudest, most forceful, and most obnoxious. He was a typical doctor and couldn't admit he was wrong to save his life. Then there was Cameron, the beauty queen, brilliant, but not as smart as the other two. Cameron was the hard worker, not the natural talent. She was a strange mix confidence and insecurity covered all over with squishy kindness. But House had learned never to under estimate her. Finally was the youngest duckling, Chase. He was the most creative of the bunch by leaps and bounds but also the most scatter brained. As smart as Foreman but not as confident and he was twice as lazy as Cameron but right 3 times more often.

They managed to save man, surprisingly. House would have given up long before Chase had but that was why Chase was the intensivist, not him. Foreman and Carmen left the room first, while Chase stayed to make a few final adjustments. Foreman looked self satisfied, like he had willed it all into happening. Cameron looked relieved that they had saved a life. Chase, when he finally came to join them, just looked tired.

They all stared at each other for a moment, all content to let House speak first. "So what does all this up and down crashing tell us?" He asked as he limped back towards his office then stopped when he realized Chase wasn't following him.

"Do you care to join us, Chase, or did Foreman eat onions for lunch?" House questioned. He had been standing up too long and his leg was complaining.

"April said that one of the other patients is probably about to crash. I don't want to go too far. We have been noticing a pattern that the patients' heart rate drop dramatically but respirations shoot way up about an hour before they crash." Chase answered as he signed some form a nurse handed him. He could have been signing away his home for all the attention he was paying.

"And you just felt like mentioning that now? Don't you think that was kind of an important fact? Apparently I didn't need to see you naked to tell you were a natural blonde. I just had to wait for the dumb roots to show." House snapped. Foreman snickered and Cameron covered her mouth with her hand to hide a smile.

Chase took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the pounding in his head rather than his desire to pound House's head against the wall. "I'm sorry I didn't mention it out loud. I was in all the files." He had meticulously recorded these things in each file for each patient whether they survived or not.

House glared at him. He hadn't read the files. "Well what does that tell us?" House leaned against the nurses' station, ceding that Chase had to stay near the ICU, but not wanting to let the duckling out of the brainstorming session.

"That their brains have lost the ability to regulate autonomic functions and we will have to do it for them. Why don't you wire up all their hearts and set ventilators?" Foreman asked.

"Most of the patients left are over 60 or under 5 plus they all have pneumonia. We would need a pediatric cardiologist to wire the kids and several, roughly half, of the adults have either pace makers or a history of cardiac problems. It's too risky." Chase argued.

"Well what are we supposed to do pray?" Foreman snapped.

"Boys, boys, play nice. What else do we know? Do the histories tell us anything?" He looked to Cameron. Her job had been to run tests and collate the histories.

"They all belong to the same church. They all went on a church retreat to a lake on private land last weekend. Of the ill, there was only one set that were related, a husband and wife, and they are both dead. The people are mostly very young or very old and the only ones in the middle were an HIV positive 35 year old and two diabetics."

"Slow moving lake, could be a parasite." Foreman threw in.

"Blood smears were clear." Cameron shot him down.

"What if we ignore the respiratory symptoms?" Chase asked, an idea on the tip of his mental tongue.

"Why don't we just ignore the fever too. While were at it we'll just ignore everything. These people aren't sick. They just like blinky lights and loud machines." Foreman snipped.

"No, I mean. The pneumonia is bacterial but the neurological problems aren't responding to antibiotics. What if they are two separate infections?" Chase thought out loud as he doodled a picture of a duck on the margins of a chart.

"Good idea. Foreman, call around to vets in the area and see if any of them have sick horses?"

"You think these people caught something from horse back riding?" Cameron seemed skeptical.

"No, but horses are a good barometer for human arboviruses."

"We already tested for West Nile, which is most likely." Cameron pointed out.

"Test for the rest of them." House turned to leave with Foreman and Cameron following. Chase stayed behind to be near the patients.

Two hours later, Chase stumbled into the lab. Foreman and Cameron were there running tests on all the blood samples. Chase flopped down in one of the stools and buried his aching head in his arms. He felt wretched. He was exhausted and every joint ached fiercely. He was freezing cold and had to go put a long sleeve shirt under his scrubs to stop from shivering. He was also dizzy and kept having flashes of double vision. He needed to get some sleep soon or he was going to fall on his face.

"Any news?" Cameron asked. She was in her element in the lab. She enjoyed the repetition of running tests. She felt like she was doing something here. She was helping to find the cause of the illness and suffering. She wouldn't feel so horrible about all the dead if she could save some of the living. She would work well into the night without realizing it that was how intent she got on finding a way to help.

"We lost the 71 year old deacon. I tried everything, but I couldn't get his heart rate up. I wired him and as soon as the current stopped so did his heart. He couldn't breath on his own or beat his own heart. His wife said to give up." Chase mumbled into his arm. He was depressed.

"What? How could you let her do that? We are so close to figuring out what is causing this." Cameron accused. She couldn't fathom how anyone would choose to give up rather than keep hoping and trying.

"It wasn't my decision. She asked if he could live without the machines I told her no he couldn't. She made the call that she wanted no machines. What was I supposed to do? Tell her to keep him in a persistent vegetative state? He went almost 8 minutes without sufficient oxygen. There wasn't any part of the man she married left." Chase defended himself. He hated making those types of calls. He always stuttered through them. The worst was when they asked what he would do. He always tried to find some way around the question. He personally had chosen to have life support for his comatose mother cut off. He had been 16 when he made the call and anyone and everyone got involved with it because his mother had been famous. There had been a trial and parliamentary hearings. And it still kept him up at night, to this day, wondering if he had made the right decision.

Cameron took a deep breath to yell at her coworker. Her nerves were frayed thin and she hated the way Chase didn't ever seem to react to things. But then she took one look at the blonde, with his head pillowed on his arms and dark circles under his eyes, and she realized that even though he didn't show it, these things still bothered him.

"You're right, Chase, sorry." She smiled at him. He gave her a weak smile in return.

Chase sat there discussing the patients with his fellow doctors for another half hour. His head was killing him and he just realized that he hadn't eaten since 6:30 that morning but he wasn't in the least bit hungry. While the other two ran tests, Chase made charts with results and other information. After a time, his head hurt so much he couldn't concentrate. Every he moved his neck, it shot pain up and down his head and back. "Cam, do you have any aspirin? I have got a vicious head ache." He asked. Afraid if he didn't get rid of it soon his head might actually explode.

"Sure." She rummaged through a drawer and produced two white pills. "Here. But I think some sleep would do more for your head than these will." She commented. Chase looked completely worn out.

"Believe me I know. But those obnoxious patients keep expecting me to bring them back from the dead." He pouted as he swallowed the pills with a cup of cold coffee, the gastric equivalent of washing torn batteries down with napalm. Cameron patted him on the back as he went back to her station.

Chase was soon paged back to the ICU then back to the lab. Next was House's office then back to the lab. He collapsed on a stool again and looked at Foreman and Cameron. They both looked almost as tired as he did. He returned to finishing his chart when he started to feel rather nauseous. He drank some water and tried to ignore it but it kept getting worse. He felt like every pound of his head was making his stomach clench. He felt himself start to drool and almost left to go empty his gut but Foreman distracted him.

"You ok man? You just got really pale." Foreman had been waiting for some results and had been watching Chase. He didn't really like the guy. Chase was an example of everything he hated about the medical community. Chase was a rich doctor whose daddy was a rich doctor and had gotten him his job. It wasn't that he didn't think Chase was a good doctor, on the contrary he could admit that Chase was damn good at what he did, but he just didn't think that what Chase did was very hard. He also didn't think Chase deserved to have this fellowship when there were probably much better doctors around who didn't have nepotism going for them.

"Yeah, I'm fine. My headache just isn't going away. I'm going to go check on the patients. I'll be back in a few." Chase lied and headed for the nearest men's room and turned off the overhead lights. He locked the door behind him and sank down on his knees in front of the toilet. He felt bloody horrible. His head, neck, shoulders, back, hips, and knees all hurt like they were dislocated and he felt nauseous enough to hurl any minute.

He sat there for a while, fighting the urge to be sick and praying no one was looking for him. Then he gave up and let himself vomit, hoping it would make him feel better. The problem was, once he started, he had a hard time stopping. Each retch sent a wave of pain threw his head and neck, which in turn just made him more nauseous.

When he finally managed to get himself back under control, he leaned against the bowl, occasionally spitting the excess saliva out of his mouth. He wondered if something was wrong with him. He was still freezing cold and shivering slightly but that could just be from adrenaline. All the aches and pains could be from exhaustion, but they did seem worse than normal. But what about the vomiting, Chase thought. It must just be from not eating and only drinking very acidic, caffeinated beverages.

He finally pushed himself up and staggered to the sink, dizzy as if he were drunk. He splashed water on his face and brushed his teeth with a paper flannel. He looked human but felt slightly left of dead. He went to talk to house. When he left the dark quiet bathroom, the bright lights and loud noises of the hallway almost sent him running back to the toilet but he managed to control himself and lurched towards House's office.

He saw House, resting in his chair, looking rather stoned. Maybe House was in Vicodin happy land and would take pity on him. "Dr. House?" Chase questioned.

"What?" House croaked.

Chase immediately realized that this wasn't happy drugged up House but coming down in pain House. He bit the inside of his cheek in frustration. "I was wondering if I could go home?" He pressed forward anyway. He wanted to lie down more than just about anything in the world.

"No." House didn't even consider it.

"But Dr. House." Chase stammered as a wave of dizziness hit him and he leaned back against the door do stop from falling. He took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm very tired and not feeling well. I'm not of much use to you right now. Just let me go home for 8 hours and I'll come back."

"No." House almost sang it. Chase had an annoying flash back of when House was telling him that Gabe was getting 'Better' even after he had shown that it wasn't an autoimmune problem.

"You let Foreman and Cameron go home yesterday. They are both here now and can stay till I get back. Dr. Standish and then Dr. Gardner will be in ICU for critical care." He tried to plead. He didn't think he had felt this bad since he had malaria.

"Let me think about this. No."

"Why?" Chase whined.

"Because Foreman would say I was racist if I didn't let him go home and you aren't as cute as Cameron."

"If I come back wearing tight pants and promise to flirt with you at every available opportunity like Cameron does, will you let me take some time off to sleep?

"No, you would actually have to put out." House waved his hand in dismissal and Chase took the hint.

"Bugger off, House." Chase snapped as he stormed out. House smiled after his duckling was out of sight. Maybe there was a back bone left there after all.

The next three hours were a whirl wind of hurry up and wait. Chase managed to grab a short nap in the ICU lounge while Dr. Standish minded the fort for him. But Foreman and Cameron kept paging him to come back so they could brainstorm. About now he was so tired and sick feeling he didn't give a rip if these people lived or died.

He had been sick twice more but neither had been as long or as violent as the first time. He was still so cold he was shivering and he felt unbelievably thirsty. His lungs were also tightening up, like he had bronchitis. He tried to ignore these things as his vision kept switching from double to single while talking to Foreman and Cameron. Then his phone rang and he looked down feeling like maybe the day might look up after all.The number displayed lightened his heart even if bending his head down sent waves of pain shooting across his skull and down his back. "Do you guys mind if I take this call?" Chase asked, praying Foreman and Cameron would let him leave.

"Sure, we'll page you if we need you." Cameron answered, still obsessively intent on her gel tests.

Chase pressed the talk button and told the person on the other line to hold on. He then headed down the back stair case and out to the service entrance of the hospital. He propped the door open and sank gratefully down on the sun warmed steps. Dusk was descending and Chase turned to watch the pinks and yellows play through the smoggy air.

"Sorry, mate, I'm here now." He started the conversation.

"Good. How are you, Robin? I left you three messages at home and you didn't answer me. I was getting worried." Cassie, Chase's best friend, surrogate sister, and father confessor questioned. They were everything to each other save lovers and had known each other almost from birth.

"I haven't been home in three days. We have an out break of some type of encephalitis. People have been crashing and dying left and right." Chase rubbed his head as he talked. He felt like his brain was pressing against the back of his head in an attempt to escape through his eye sockets.

"How many people?" Cass was relieved just to hear Chase's voice. She was worried at how depressed he had been sounding lately.

"Twenty four sick, nine dead so far."

"Are you ok with it?" Obviously he wasn't, who would be ok with that many people dying in front of them. She was trying to gauge just how upset he was. She reckoned she knew him better than anyone else and knew how the more something hurt him the more he tried to hide it. It was a defense mechanism he had learned long ago just to survive in his own home.

"I'm fine. I am a doctor. I see people die all the time." He tried to obfuscate. It hurt like a punch in the chest that so many people had died under his care.

"Yeah, doesn't bother you just like bad review don't bother me?" She called bullshit on him.

"Ok, so let us both live out our charades and pretend we are happy with dying people and nasty music critics." He leaned his head back against the half brick wall he was resting against in a weak attempt to alleviate the pounding and pressure.

"No, because I can tell you aren't happy."

"Fine, it hurts like hell and I feel totally useless and helpless. But, crying about it doesn't do any good." Chase answered, half in jest. He hated feeling helpless unfortunately it was a common state of affairs with him.

"Sure. What about everything else? How are you doing besides the outbreak? You sound kind of funny." She noticed he sounded muffled and quiet, like he was whispering to someone with a hangover.

"I have a really bad headache that hurts so much it has been making me hurl." He decided to be honest with her. It was nice to talk to someone, who might actually care if he fell on his face. Cass was the one person he would open up to willingly. She knew his dirty little secrets and she still loved him. She was the only person that had never betrayed him and never left him. She was the only person that he really and truly trusted.

"Well tell that puss bag you work for that you need to go home."

"I did, he won't listen. He told me to go back to work." A car drove by, its headlights shining in his eyes, spiking pain through his head. The sudden pain made his stomach clench and he leaned forward with his head between his legs drooling.

"I don't understand why you just don't quit. He can't do anything to do. Your barrister could get you out and if not, you could just buy out your contract. Is proving Rowan wrong really worth all this?" She hated hearing him sound so down and she hated the fact that House was responsible. But mostly she hated Rowan for making his son think he had to jump threw all these hoops just to get a little bit of parental affection.

"I know I could leave but I did promise I would stay for 2 years and I should honor that promise." The sick feeling in his gut subsided and he pulled his knees up to his chest to hug them. He started to shiver even more.

"Robin, you are not your father. Leaving a job is not the same thing as leaving a family. No one would think any less of you if you came home. You deserve to be happy." She tried to convince him.

"No, I don't. I deserve what House is doing to me. I betrayed him." This was an old disagreement between them. She had a much more transient sense of loyalty than he did.

"No you don't and no you didn't. You saved your job from the chopping block. You dished about a co worker. Big freaking deal! And everything you told was stuff that should have been known anyway, right? House is a menace, not a saviour and you don't owe him a god damn thing." Cass spat vehemently. She just wished that should she could make Chase understand that work was work and personal was personal. Work only became personal if you let it and he needed to quit letting it happen. She was smart enough to realize that part of the problem was that Chase was insanely lonely in New Jersey. He hadn't known a single person in America when he moved there and the people he worked with were the only souls he really ever had extended contact with.

"Can we talk about something else? I've been fighting for or against something all day. I'm exhausted and just want to be cheered up. Tell me about where ever you are." He begged. Upstairs, everyone was over stressed, over tired, and on edge. He needed to relax and recharge even if it was only a few minutes.

"Of course." She soothed, telling him about Paris, the venue, and her recent shows. He sounded awful and she wanted nothing more than to be able to give him a hug and a kiss on the forehead, telling him that everything was ok. He tended to stress about things till he made himself sick. He let things eat away at his insides, little by little until he crumbled into dust. It was so hard to stop him once he started but she tried anyway. She loved him more than anyone in the world even though sometimes being friends with him was like watching a train wreck, but only if you knew where to look.

Chase listened to her describe her travels and he felt his shoulders relax slightly. She could do that to him, her deep velvety voice that sold so many records could calm him down like nothing but valium should. She was exactly what he needed right now. He just wished he could see her in person. He missed actually being able to physically touch her, not in a sexual way, but in a friendly comforting way. He missed rubbing her shoulders after a long day and falling asleep with his head in her lap. He missed the sight of her, the sound of her, and the smell of her in his day to day life.

"So I was thinking. Do you reckon that asswipe you work for would give you some time off in the fall? I was thinking a ski trip is in order for our birthdays this year. Maybe not Gstaad because the photographers were so annoying last year, but maybe we should try Bormio, Italy, " She suggested. Their birthdays were 10 days apart and they tried to always spend them together. She wanted to take him somewhere quiet and secluded. They had both grown up as children of famous mothers and while she embraced it, going into acting at age 11 and later singing, Chase ran from it. He had never liked the photographer circles that followed them everywhere but he had become almost phobic of them since his mother had died and the trial surrounding her death had been played out in the media. He had changed his name and moved half a world away to try and escape them and mostly had. However, when she was around, they found them both again and it made him miserable.

"I don't know." Chase answered, not sure if House would ever let him take any time off again even though he had three weeks of vacation he had never used.

"Come on. Call in sick for week. We can go to Aspen or Telluride even if you can't make it all the way to Italy." She tried to cajole.

"I'm not sure." He stuttered wanting nothing more than to be with her someplace dark and quiet like a ski lodge.

"I miss you, Robin, I haven't seen you in forever. That bastard has to give you some time off or I am sicking my lawyers on him." Ok, now she moved on to guilt and sheer manipulation. He needed a break and she was going to make sure he got one before he ran himself into another nervous breakdown.

"I'll talk to him." He had wanted to say more, but he hadn't gotten the chance before his pager went off. He quickly told her good bye and took off back up to the second floor ICU.

Across the Atlantic, in Paris, France, Cass leaned back against her pillows and pondered. She needed to do something to cheer him up and fast. He sounded bloody terrible, worse than she had heard him yet. She quickly dialed the concierge and asked them to find her an all night delivery service in New Jersey.

They managed to save both of the patients that coded in the last two hours and another had even woken up. Foreman had been concerned about their inability to speak clearly but it was a 65 year old woman. She might have suffered a stroke. They would check later but right now House wanted them all in his office.

The ducklings entered to find Wilson, House, and Cuddy already seated. Foreman and Cameron took the only two seats left at the long table, so Chase took one of the chairs by the door. He felt like a total outsider. It was the least of his worries though. He needed to talk to House after this. House had to let him go home. He had had to have Foreman intubate the last patient because he was shaking and shivering so much he couldn't keep his hands steady.

They began to discuss what was happening and all rejoiced as they finally had a definitive diagonosis, Eastern Equine Encephalitis and bacterial pneumonia. Though theoretically, there wasn't much to be happy about since it usually carried between a 35 - 50 mortality rate. Chase contributed nothing to the conversation. He had been freezing for the last four hours but now felt like he was on fire. He tugged and the back of his lap coat and felt sweat drip from his hair line.

He looked past the table to the window just as the spotlights from the helicopter lading pad shown through the slated blinds. The light flickered into his eyes and looked like the strobing flashes of paparazzi cameras. They burned into his eyes making his head feel like it was going to explode. He turned away, shooting pain through his neck and head, catching the light as he shown off of Wilson's glass. Chase started, thinking Wilson was trying to photograph him. He hated camera. He hated having his picture taken. He hated reporters and the media. He just wanted to be left alone.

He dropped his head into his hand and the weird image passed as suddenly as it had come. It left him feeling weak, ill and like someone was roasting him over a fire pit. His tongue felt swollen and sticky in his mouth and he needed a drink. He rose unsteadily and staggered over towards the ice box. No one paid much heed to him, but Wilson. Wilson gave House a pointed look and House watched the way his youngest duckling staggered like a drunk. House nodded almost imperceptibly. He would let Chase leave as soon as they were finished and he was sure that Wilson would probably drive the Aussie home.

Chase managed to make it back to his seat and almost fell down into it. He rubbed the cold water bottle against his super heated forehead. The bottle felt like a block of ice, almost painfully cold against his hot skin. He could feel himself sweating through is long sleeve undershirt he wore beneath his scrubs and it felt terrible. He wanted to rip his clothes off and jump in the snow just to stop the feeling that he was burning.

House rose and wrote on the board. Chase tried to focus on it, but it looked like jumble of nonsense to him. He pushed his glasses down his nose and rubbed his eyes. The sound of the marker against the board was like sirens blaring in his ears, making his head hurt so much he could barely see. He dropped it so that his chin rested against his chest. When he raised it again, blue and white dots danced in front of his eyes and he saw two of everything. He was washed with a wave of dizziness and thought he was going to throw up on the floor. He had to get out of there. He was anxious and everything was too bright, too loud, and too hot. He rose to leave and staggered towards the door when Wilson called his name.

House had been vaguely paying attention to his youngest duckling since he had come back in the room. Even before Wilson's prodding, House had taken one look at Chase and realized that he was going to send him home. Chase looked awful. He was white as a ghost, even for him, and had a dark red flush over his nose and cheeks. He also noticed the perspiration running down his intensivist's face and the way he kept hiding behind his hand. He had only grown more concerned when Chase rose to get his water. The Aussie staggered foot over foot, ataxia, which could be caused from exhaustion but now House wasn't so sure.

Then Chase had gotten up again, and Wilson called his name. House looked over in time to see Chase turn from white to grey and then fall onto his hands and knees. Before anyone could get to him, he started to retch up bile and mucus in thick ropey cords onto the floor. Everyone sat, stunned for a split second. Wilson was the first to react and knelt beside the younger doctor, shoving a trash can under him. The oncologist supported the ill Aussie, being more than used to people throwing up in front of him. Wilson put his hand on Chase's forehead to pull his hair out of his face and felt like he had just touched a stove burner.

"Get a thermometer." Wilson said steadily to no one in particular. However, before Cuddy could comply, Chase lost consciousness. Wilson helped to lower the duckling to the floor when he felt the blonde go limp.

When Cuddy returned, Wilson took the proffered thermometer and couldn't hide the gasp of shock when he read the numbers, 104.8" Wilson looked at his friend.

"We have to get him in ICU, now. Foreman a gurney, Cameron, go find a room." House barked.

Both ducklings stood staring at their companion, not moving. Each of them having the same thought playing through their head. "What was wrong with Chase and was he going to be alright?"

"Now!" House yelled even louder, shaking the two out of their stupor. Cuddy and Wilson were already working to loosen Chase's close and make sure his air way was clear. Wilson was quickly inserting an IV that Cuddy had brought. They would have to switch it to a cool one to try and bring down his temperature.

Once the ducklings had left, he turned to House. "This is how the other presented." It was a statement not a question, with a duckling they would have looked to House to verify this fact, Wilson didn't need it. "How the hell did he catch it?"

"Maybe your diagnosis was wrong." Cuddy stated as she handed Wilson tape.

"Maybe it is and it is something that can go airborne." House stated flatly as he watched the two other doctors work on Chase. He should have helped, but he felt rooted to the spot he was standing. If he was right about the diagnosis, Chase only had a 50/50 chance of survival and a ¼ change of coming out of it without permanent neurological problems. This couldn't be happening, not now. Not before they made amends with each other.

TBC

A/N: I just wanted to mention that I know I messed with the incubation period of EEE and that there have only been about 200 human cases in the last 40 years but I see it now and again in horses so I thought I would use it. As for the transmission through a used needle, that is more controversial. There has never been a zoological case of an arbovirus being transmitted threw infected needles or transfusion, to the best of my knowledge, however, conventional knowledge says that anything that can be transmitted through mosquitoes can be transmitted via exposure to infected blood. Also, EEE is far more concentrated in human blood than in horses even when a horse goes encephalitic. Finally West Nile Virus can be transmitted human to human via transfusion and occupational exposure, which is technically what Chase's case would fall under, so why not EEE too.

All that said, this being a House story it is in keeping with cannon to run rough shot over time lines, treatments, and general medical facts. ;)


	3. Prince not so Charming

A/N: Ok, so here is another chapter. I realize there are plot holes you could drive a truck through, but to be fair they also exist in the show. But some that were pointed out to me were the needle and the hours Chase worked. As for the needle, I know there are procedures for such things, we have them even at a veterinary hospital. But sometimes in the heat of the moment they are ignored or postponed if there is a life hanging in the balance.

As for the long hours, I addressed that in this chapter.

I would also like to thank my wonderful new beta reader Adnawun, though admittedly I didn't wait till she was finished before I posted this chapter. I have this thing about time lines and I'm worried that the coming hurricane will knock out my power.

Finally, someone asked if I am an Aussie, and the answer is only sort of. I was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa. I moved to Australia when I was in my teens and stayed there through University and vet school. Then came to the US to work.

To Ally, You are right and I'm sorry, that line was in poor taste and I removed it.

Anyway, enjoy.

Disclaimer: I own none of these characters except for Cassie and you are more than willing to borrow her if you want.

**Sleeping Beauty**

House stood outside of the ICU as the nurses settled Dr. Chase into his bed. Cuddy and Wilson were giving orders for this treatment of that treatment. Foreman placed ice packs against his youngest duckling, noting Chase didn't fight it in the least - not very encouraging House mused. He watched as Dr. Wilson kindly wiped sweat from the young duckling's damp brow. Chase's body had spent the last several hours shivering in an attempt to try to raise his temperature high enough to kill off whatever had infected him. Now, his body had realized his temperature was too high and was sweating in an attempt to cool itself back off.

House winced when he saw the Aussie retch, even though he was unconscious. Regardless of having been a doctor for 15 years, he still didn't like watching people throw up; he just thought it was icky. He leaned heavily against the wall as the doctor's left Chase's room. One of the ICU nurses remained. House didn't know her name and didn't care. As long as she took good care of his fellow she meant nothing to him.

He looked at all the assembled doctors for a moment, Cuddy, Wilson, Foreman, and Cameron. It was strange, Cuddy was the Dean of Medicine and Wilson was the head of a department that was 10 times bigger but they all deferred to House. "Differential diagnosis, people?" He asked.

"He presented exactly like the others. It's the same thing." Cameron blurted out. She had tears in her eyes.

"It can't be. Encephalitis is not person to person communicable." Foreman stated.

"Maybe it mutated somehow?" Wilson threw in.

"We need to get a spinal tap and a CT scan on him to be positive. Are we also sure of his symptoms. What do we definitely know?" House questioned. He was missing his white board about now. Trying to do this standing in front of a room in the ICU was hard but none of them seemed too keen to stray far from Chase.

"We know he has a 104+ fever, almost 105," Wilson chimed in.

"Nausea and vomiting," Cuddy mentioned.

"He was complaining of a bad headache earlier today. He asked for some aspirin." Cameron lamented.

"He was shaking and shivering too." Foreman offered. "I had to run the code on the last patient because he was shaking like a junky."

"Ataxia, and Ptsosis," House added as he started to write on the glass door in front of Chase's room with a marker he had in his pocket. He had noticed Chase's staggering as he had walked around the office just before he had collapsed. House had also noticed his duckling's eye lids drooping as he sat slumped in his chair not talking.

"Lethargy." Cuddy added.

"Ah, we can discount the lethargy." House tried to side step that particular point.

"Why?"

"Because."

"'Because' isn't an answer." Cuddy crossed her arms and glared at House.

"Because House has been making Chase work 20 hour days and hasn't given him a day off in almost 8 weeks." Foreman said. This had nothing to do with the diagnosis and he enjoyed watching House squirm.

"Fink," House looked towards Foreman.

"You what?" Cuddy almost shrieked. She really did look like her head was going to explode.

"He snitched on me. He deserved it." House tried to defend himself. It sounded lame even to his own ears.

Cuddy took a deep breath. "There are rules, there are regulations. Doctors are not allowed to work hours like that. They get tired. They make mistakes. People die. We get sued!"

"Dr. Cuddy." Wilson said in a soothing voice. "House." He said in a more accusatory tone. "You two can fight as much as you want later. Right now, we need to concentrate on the patients."

"Right. So what do we think?" House returned to the original topic.

"It's classic EEE," Cameron said again, blinking away tears. "What are we going to do?"

House rounded on her and Foreman, needing to take his anger out on someone. He wanted to go in there and wake Chase up just so he could deck him. "So you knew we were in the middle of an encephalitis outbreak and your colleague that has had the closest contact with the infected patients suddenly comes down with a headache and shakes. And you don't feel you need to mention it?"

"It was just a headache, we thought he was tired," Foreman tried to defend them.

"It was just a headache." House mocked. "You're talking about Chase remember? The same person who runs on a screwed up knee every day? The same person who hangs out with dominatrixes? The same person who competes in marathons and triathlons? A person, who has a really high threshold for pain and a real dislike for taking drugs and you don't find it interesting that he was feeling bad enough to ask for aspirin?" House was almost yelling now.

"We thought everything could be chalked up to him being exhausted because you wouldn't let him go home and get any rest." Foreman sharply accused. It had little to do with caring about Chase's welfare and more to do with being mad at House for insinuating that he was unobservant. Also, Foreman wasn't too fond of the fact that House was making Cameron cry.

"But what are we going to do?" Cameron was actually in tears now. "What if we can't help him?"

"You are going to get your head out of your ass and start acting like a doctor, otherwise you are useless to me and him. If you can't do that then go hold his hand and get out of my sight." Cameron looked like someone had slapped her as Chase retched again in his room. "Or better yet, hold his hair," House stalked off Wilson and Cuddy trailing after him, assuming Foreman would order the tests. Foreman watched, shocked. He had never seen House yell at Cameron before and he had naturally assumed that Wilson would stay and console her. Foreman put a hand on her shoulder and smiled before he went to schedule the scan.

Cameron remained, watching Chase sleep. His reflexes were still good and he hadn't started seizing yet. That was good; she kept trying to remind herself. However, tears still worked their way into her eyes but she violently wiped them away. How could everyone else be so calm? Chase was sick, there was a good change he might die and Foreman didn't seem to care and House was just angry because he thought they had screwed up. But no one seemed to care about Chase.

She swallowed thickly, and thought about her fellow duckling. He wasn't the easiest person to work with. He was a suck up, he was lazy on occasion, and let everyone push him around. He was passive aggressive, evasive, reserved, and just plain cold sometimes. But, there was also the other side of him too; the side that could be so caring like he had been with Gabe, Sister Augustine, and Dan. It was the same side that agreed to work holidays so that people with families near by could go home and see them. Cameron remembered last Thanksgiving when Chase took her shifts for her so she could go home for 5 whole days. She knew that he had worked Easter so Foreman could go home and worked Christmas so that several of the ICU doctors could be with their loved ones.

She didn't want to think about what the department would be like without him. He was the comic relief of the three of them. He had a wicked sense of humour and of course, there was the fun of laughing at him directly. He also thought the most like House, even if Foreman acted the most like him. Chase was the most likely to come up with something completely out of nowhere like House did. Chase was the annoying little brother that you didn't want to admit you liked. She wiped tears away and left to find Foreman. She would find a way to help him!

Back in House's office; Wilson and Cuddy sat facing the older doctor. "Weren't you a little hard on them?" Wilson asked.

"No, they screwed up. How could they have missed this?" House leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose. He needed another Vicodin but would wait till Cuddy left.

"If they screwed up, then you did too. You didn't catch it either. Didn't you tell me he came in here and asked to go home because he didn't feel well?"

"Yes. I missed it too." House finally looked at his friend. "How the hell does someone walk around with a 104 fever for hours and no one notice?" He asked, frustrated. He finally pulled his pill bottle out, no longer caring about Cuddy's disapproving glare.

"I don't know. He might not have even realized he was that sick. And with a fever that high he probably wasn't thinking straight." Wilson soothed. It was what he did. He let House yell and rage at him and then he calmed the older man down.

"Regardless of how long it took everyone to notice, we have to consider the fact that this bug may have become air borne."

"It didn't go air borne. That is the point of an arbovirus. You need an arthropod to transmit it." House annunciated each work slowly and waved his hands around like he was mimicking sign language.

Cuddy pursed her lips and glared at him. "Then what is your brilliant theory on how someone who was not in contact with the infected mosquitoes but only the ill patients managed to catch the virus? Everyone who has had contact with the patients will have to be tested." Cuddy drew the conversation back to what she thought was important.

"Half the people in New Jersey will test positive for it. It is only that 1/10,000 people that end up with encephalitis the rest of the time it is a harmless headache or totally asymptomatic."

"We can't rule out that you were wrong in the diagnosis." Cuddy defended herself.

"I wasn't wrong. It fits, it's perfect. Chase caught it, somehow."

"I'm contacting the New Jersey Health Authority and the CDC. They need to get teams out here immediately."

"There is no reason for that. It isn't communicable." House tapped the handle of his cane on his desk. "I need his medical records and personnel file."

"I'll have them sent up to you immediately and I am calling them." She left.

"What the hell is going on? How does a young, otherwise healthy, man get this sick this fast?" House questioned.

"Maybe he is immuno-compromised? He could be HIV positive and not know." Wilson commented. Chase was a good-looking guy and probably got a lot of action. He knew that he hadn't always been careful when he was in Chase's position.

"Maybe. I need to think." House shoved himself up and hobbled out of his office, leaving Wilson behind him staring.

Up in the ICU, everything was quiet. Chase's stats were stable and he was resting comfortably or so it appeared. He wasn't comfortable though. His fever and discomfort were wreaking havoc on his subconscious. In his sleep, his mind manufactured reasons for these feelings, like dreaming of falling to explain a myoclonic jerk.

Dream:

_Chase sat in the Diagnostic Department conference room with his fellow ducklings and House. Bright sunlight shone in through the window and made him feel like his skin was burning. No mater where he moved about the office it followed him. House was writing symptoms on the board but no matter how hard Chase concentrated on them, the scribbles made no sense. He recognized the words but they were incomprehensible in the sequences that House placed them up there. He wanted to say something about it but held his tongue, fearful of House's ridicule._

"_We have a 38 year old woman, DVT, and schizophrenia." House said as he sat down at the table, pulling out a bagel from a bag. He opened the bagel and spread across it was chunky peanut butter with bits of bugs ground into it. He took a big bite, slurping and licking a leg off his lips. Chase gagged._

"_I say we give her an aspirin and send her home." Foreman commented. He was standing directly beside Chase, looking unbelievably tall and imposing._

"_Yes, let's send her home." Cameron mimicked, tearing off a piece of House's bagel and feeding it too him. She smiled sweetly at her boss._

_Something about this whole thing seemed like a distant memory to Chase. He knew they shouldn't send the woman home, something bad would happen. He opened his mouth to tell them but no sound came out. He tried to scream but it was only a small squeak, something was choking him. He coughed and felt like something was hanging down the back of his throat and packed under his tongue. He put his hand in his mouth, trying to clear it only to find that it was spiders, some mashed and oozing like he had chewed them up, some whole and crawling across his tongue and over his lips. He staggered towards the table, trying to dislodge the spiders choking him. He hacked up more spiders onto the table and felt others run across his face. They were choking the air out of his lungs._

_One particularly large one ran across the table towards House. The elder doctor scooped it up and looked at him. "You aren't going to eat that are you?" He asked as he dropped it in his mouth, crunching it up._

Chase woke partially. He had a strange sensation that he was sitting in a too hot bath. He wanted to get up and move but felt like his body was made of liquid. Each time he tried to move, the strength to do so ran through his fingers like water. Even lifting his eyelids was too much of an effort. Before long he dropped back off to sleep, dream forgotten.

A short time later, an admin arrived with two small files labeled with Dr. Chase's real name. House sat down to read them. There wasn't much there that he hadn't already known. He had investigated Chase thoroughly before he had hired him, and he had learned a great deal more after meeting Rowan. What was frustrating was that the medical history only went back to the time Chase started at PPTH. All House found in there was that Chase had gone to Dr. Rivnel, an orthopedic surgeon, and had disregarded her recommendation to have his knee scoped. There was one thing of interest in there, though, and he rose to talk to Wilson about it.

Wilson leaned against a counter in Clinic exam room 2, listening to a woman talk about the colour of her 18 month old's stool. Damn Cuddy and her new extended hours. Who kept a walk in clinic open till midnight? He could not have been more board. He almost welcomed House's intrusion, almost.

"You rotten, evil, little twerp. You have been holding out on me." House barged in and said right in front of mother and infant. Wilson looked like he had just eaten a lemon.

"Excuse me a moment." He said politely to the woman and ushered House out of the exam room. "Do you make it a point to interrupt me whenever I am with a patient, or is it just a happy coincidence?"

"The only difference between coincidence and logic is that we haven't found the correlating fact between the occurrences." House countered.

"And this has what to do with you bothering me?" Wilson paused. "Has there been some change in Chase's condition?"

"No, he is still stable for now. But you have been neglecting your friendship duties, young man." House scolded.

"What, pray tell, are you babbling about?"

"Chase. You didn't tell me that you prescribed him anti-depressants, and strong ones too."

"Again with you thinking you deserve to know everything about my patients. Did it occur to you that maybe Chase didn't want you to know and that is why he came to me?" Wilson was thinking about House's comments regarding his treatment of another Dr. Chase.

"Ah, but you haven't refilled his prescription in almost three months." House stated. "Since just before Vogler showed up." It finally began to dawn on House how different Chase had been then, compared to what he had been like before.

"I had to cancel a couple of appointments with him, then he never bothered to reschedule. I guess it just slipped my mind. I figured that he got someone else to refill it, maybe Cameron or Foreman," Wilson mused.

"Cameron or Foreman, have you been sniffing glue? Robert, he of the closed lips, Chase going to one of his fellow ducklings for something as embarrassing as anti-depressants? That is just ridiculous."

"Why would he be embarrassed? Wilson commented as he handed the mother and drippy infant's file to his relief, thankful he had gotten out of that one. "Thousands of people take SSIs."

"But how many men do you know who take them and talk freely about them? He never got the script refilled." House observed.

"That can't be right. He was taking two scripts for sever depression. If he quit cold turkey, his personality would have been up, down, and all over the place." Wilson hung his head. "Like it was when Vogler was here."

"And now that the chemicals in his brain have gone back to their natural state of depression, he is calmer and more compliant, if lacking in the happy land department." House finished Wilson's thought for him. "We need the rest of his medical records."

"There might be a problem with that." Cuddy walked up behind them. How did she always know where to find him? It was creepy.

"Why?"

"Apparently in Australia, there has to be a family member or a court order to get medical records released over seas. Stacy is working on it, but she doesn't hold out much hope. We are trying to reach Dr. Chase senior to release the records, but aren't having much luck."

"Let me know what you find." House said and limped off as fast as he could. He wasn't about to get roped into clinic duty.

Upstairs in the ICU, Foreman examined his fellow duckling. Chase's stats were mostly normal. His O2 stats were a bit off, but that could be the beginnings of the pneumonia that everyone else was suffering from. He ordered antibiotics for Chase. He reached over and took Chase's pulse. It was only the second time he had ever actually touched his co worker. He and Cameron often had causal contact with each other, a hug after a hard day or a pat on the back but Chase was so distant and standoffish with people that Foreman just couldn't be friendly with him.

He wouldn't kid himself, there were isolated times when Chase could crack him up. Then there was the fun of laughing at Chase's poor, poor decision-making skills. But mostly he just didn't like the youngest duckling. Chase was everything that he resented in life. He was a rich, handsome, white guy, who had had everything handed to him on a silver platter. It was disgusting. He supposed though, that in a way he disliked the idea of Chase more than he actually disliked the person. But that also depended on which Chase you were dealing with. Typically they dealt with laid back Chase, who was annoying, but easy to ignore. He liked the funny Chase that joked about House and $1,000 hookers. He admired the Chase that saved poisoned teenagers. He respected the Chase that could go head to head with the world's best Rheumatologist and come out on top. And he totally adored the Chase that could convince sick kids and sick nuns to confide him in. But he hated the intolerant Chase that made fun of fat people. He despised suck up Chase that always sided with House. And he wanted to kick the shit out of back stabbing Chase that had tried to get Cameron fired. Finally, he wanted to drown apathetic Chase, who wouldn't stand up for himself.

But right now none of that made a difference, he told himself. Chase was just another patient that needed to be taken care of, no different than anyone else. He hoped that if he kept saying that to himself, over and he might start to believe it.

Chase heard Foreman's voice and wanted to tell him to quit shining that stupid penlight in his eyes because it hurt. But he couldn't. Before he knew what was happening, he had fallen back asleep and was dreaming of home. Not nice memories of home, but unpleasant ones.

Dream:

_Chase walked into the cool dim light of the ICU at St. Catherine's Hospital in Sydney. It was raining out and he put his soggy coat by the door. He looked at the woman lying prone in the bed, nothing had changed. His mother was still hooked to numerous tubes and gadgets, just like she had been for over two months now. Her face was gaunt, eyes sunken, lips parched, and skin nearly translucent. She was a spectre of what she had once been, a wraith, haunting him day and night with his inability to help her._

_He performed the rest of his daily ritual. He spoke quietly to her about nothing important, mostly his dog and cat. He kept the discussion away from the trial, not because he thought it would bother her but because he didn't want to think about it. He brushed her long blonde hair and bathed her, all the while praying for a response that would never come. It was night and he was tired. His head hurt terribly. He pulled a chair up beside her and rested his head near hers, still quietly whispering to her. No one bothered them in here, not anymore. The hospital had put a stop to the journalists and photographers from coming up here. They still hounded him outside, but here at least it was quiet._

"_So what have we here?" Dr. House limped in. Chase jumped to see him. "Thirty-eight year old female, sleeping a lot." Foreman and Cameron trailed in behind him._

"_Maybe she is just tired of her life." Foreman mentioned as he approached the bed._

"_Then let's wake her up." House pulled over a defibrillator._

"_No, wait, she isn't sleeping, she is in a coma." Chase tried to stop them. They completely ignored him._

"_No, she isn't, look." Cameron walked over and whispered in his mother's ear. The bed ridden woman turned her head towards Cameron's voice._

"_They, they told me she was brain dead." Chase stuttered. "They told me there was no hope."_

"_She isn't brain dead, she is just sleeping." House walked over and gave her a good shake. Her eyes opened and stared lovingly at him. House sounded strange, he didn't have an accent. There was no flat American drawl to his voice like Chase was used to. Why didn't people have accents in dreams he wondered? Then he wondered if it was a dream._

"_Mum." He gasped and ran to her side._

"_You were going to let them pull the plug on me, you ungrateful brat."_

"_They told me you wouldn't get better. They told me." He trailed off._

"_And you believed them? You can't trust doctors." House said as he slid into bed beside Chase's mother._

"_You didn't even bother to get a second opinion did you? You were just going to let them kill me? Bet you would be relieved to have me gone." She accused her son then turned to House. "Just like his father, always trying to leave me behind for his own convenience."_

"_No, that isn't true. I wanted you to be at peace. I wanted you out pain." There were tears pouring down his face and he was having a hard time catching his breath._

"_Pain, you were the second biggest pain behind your father. Always nagging me and trying to control me. 'Don't do this, don't do that.' I'm a grown woman, stop treating me like a child." She shouted at him, House behind her smirking._

"_I don't want to control you, mum. I just want you to get well." He pleaded._

"_No, you were going to leave me, just like your father. Walk out on me and leave me standing behind. Run away to another country and another life. Run away from your responsibilities and who you are. You don't even want to use your real name."_

"_No. That isn't true. I wasn't going to leave you. I only left because I thought you were going to die." He was confused. This didn't make sense at all._

"_I am not dead. I am quite well, in fact I'll be bloody well better soon." She turned to House and accepted a Vicodin and a glass of gin from him._

"_No." Chase whimpered and felt bile rise in the back of his throat._

He woke, just as he started to retch. It was strange really, to register everything that was happening to him but be completely unable to respond. He tried to tell himself that it was all a dream. Fevers did that, made you have strange dreams. But there was a very fine line between being awake and remembering and being asleep and dreaming.

Foreman entered the conference room and sat down, staring across the table at House. "So how is the patient?" House tried to sound nonchalant.

"Chase is stable. His breathing is becoming laboured and his chest is getting congested. I started him on some antibiotics."

"Anything else?"

"He looks like shit."

"People in the ICU usually do."

"He wouldn't be there if it weren't for you." Foreman accused.

"Foreman!" Cameron scolded.

"No, let him talk. I am interested in his brilliant theory of how I am responsible for Chase being infected with a deadly virus. I know, I put mosquitoes in his boxers."

"Boxer briefs," Cameron corrected, hoping to change the subject. They both gave her an absolutely gobsmacked look. "Girls can tell." She shrugged and flipped her hair.

"Anyway." House dragged the word out, trying to cleanse his mind of the idea that woman sat around analyzing what type of knickers he had on. "Your theory?"

"We can all agree that a normal healthy person wouldn't have contracted this virus and if they did, their body's natural defenses would have protected them." House nodded for Foreman to continue. He found it amusing that the immunologist wasn't chiming it. Wilson snuck in during the pause. "You kept Chase so tired, overworked, and over stressed that his immune system just gave up. He wouldn't have been susceptible to it if you hadn't run him into the ground."

"Foreman, I didn't know you two were so close. Have you picked out a china pattern yet?" House snarked, mostly because Foreman's words were too close to what he was thinking.

"Yes, the same one you and Wilson have." He countered. "I couldn't care less about the kid, I told you to fire him."

"I told him that too, but he doesn't hear so good anymore." Wilson mentioned.

"I don't think he has cancer, so what exactly are you doing here?" House turned to Wilson.

"You have better coffee." He looked as sweet and innocent as an angel.

"As interesting as your theory is, Foreman, we still don't have a complete picture."

"You want me to break into his apartment?" Foreman sighed and then rose to leave.

"Hold on there, speedy. You stay here. You can't be trusted, you might steal his baseball cards or something."

"Cricket."

"Where?" Cameron looked grossed out. She didn't like crickets. Tommy Johnson used to put them down her shirt in grammar school.

"No, I mean wouldn't he have cricket cards instead of baseball cards?" Wilson asked.

"Do cricket cards exist?" House asked.

"Do you two ever have a point?" Foreman asked half way between aggravated and completely perplexed. Cameron giggled to herself. Foreman didn't realize that occasionally he and Chase sounded like a young version of House and Wilson. She really hoped that didn't make her Cuddy.

"Occasionally. I will go look around in his apartment, Wilson is coming too." House stood, assuming his friend would follow. Foreman watched them leave with a sad sort of fascination.

Wilson struggled with the door as House leaned against the wall panting. The stairs had been a serious strain and Wilson wasn't surprised when his friend took a second Vicodin. There was a certain irony to House having to climb 7 flights of stairs on the singular outing he had gone on in years. Eventually, Wilson managed to get the door open. It was a heavy, sliding steel door rather than a normal hinged door and Wilson quietly ushered House in first. The interior was dark, with looming, high ceilings and dark solar shades pulled over the large windows. The only light in the room was supplied by an enormous fish tank against the far wall. House fumbled around trying to find a light switch, but even when he flipped it on, the lights were soft and dim.

"Well, this place has all the warmth and charm of a morgue." Wilson commented. The thick brick and concrete walls kept the interior temperature around 65 all year long. "So what are we looking for, exactly?" Wilson questioned, while looking around the huge expanse of Chase's loft. It was cold, cavernous, and unwelcoming.

"Right now, you are looking for something to drink for me." House croaked as he slowly sat in Chase's very low slung couch.

Wilson headed towards the kitchen, admiring the expensive appliances and cabinetry. "This place will be really nice, when he finishes it." Wilson pointed out. All the interior walls were still exposed brick, the floor was concrete, and there were steel girders and pipes running along the walls and ceiling. There was also nothing personal around. No keepsakes or fine artwork to lighten the walls. The only thing hanging on the walls, other than three bicycles, was a large print of Sydney Harbour that hung of a floating, floor to ceiling, glass block fireplace. The print was black and white except for the water, which was a vivid blue. Much of the grey was shot through with shining silver and the whites were opalescent. Wilson thought it was lovely.

"I think it is finished. It has looked the same every time I have ever come here." House pointed out, willing the second Vicodin to work. Stupid Chase, living on the stupid top floor.

"If it is finished, then it is hideous." Wilson commented as he brought his friend a bottle of cold water, procured from the Aussie's ice box.

"Considering it is Chase, we should just be thankful that the floor isn't plaid, with striped walls, a floral couch, and polka-dot curtains." Houses observed as he rubbed his leg, and leant his head back, even though the couch was only 8" off the ground, it was comfy.

"So I wonder what you call this look then, hobo train yard chic, like his wardrobe?" Wilson joked.

"I believe it is called Sydney Industrial." Stacy commented, scaring the crap out of both men. Neither had heard her approach.

Both House and Wilson were jumpy being in Chase's home unescorted and uninvited. Chase was pathologically private. The only thing that could usually get a rise out of him was poking around in his private life, and they were not just poking around but rummaging, shaking up, and dumping it out. That was part of the reason he had decided to do this rather than sending Cameron and Foreman like he usually would. He still had enough respect for Chase that he wouldn't parade things that the Aussie wanted to keep private in front of his co workers. He, however, had no qualms about searching through Chase's things and learning them for himself.

"What are you doing here?" House accused.

"I live downstairs. Chase asked me to take care of his fish if he isn't home." She jingled a set of keys as if to prove her point.

"You live here? In a half finished apartment under Chase?" House was incredulous.

"No, the ones downstairs are lovely. Nicely dry walled and decorated. I think he brought in an interior designer to do them. He gave us a good deal on the rent in return for taking care of his box of ocean water over there." She waltzed in like she owned the place.

"Bizarre." Wilson breathed.

"Let's get started." House snapped and tried to rise from his seat, not the easiest thing to do. Wilson walked over and gave him a hand up, the oncologist being the only person House would accept help from without feeling indebted. "This is not a cripple friendly place." He groused.

"Chase isn't a cripple." Stacy pointed out as she searched around the fish tank.

"He has a bad knee." House pointed out.

"No, he has very nice knees." Stacy countered.

"Does your husband know that you ogle one of your coworkers?" Wilson asked, hoping to divert some ridiculous pissing contest between the two.

"Yes. He said that I could put Chase on my 'List.'"

"You wasted a spot on your 'List' on my über catholic duckling?"

"How do you know he is still über catholic? And he is the one who said he wanted to sleep with me."

"I don't believe that." House said, looking through Chase's cupboards. The Aussie had a decided lack of food. But then again, House hadn't given him much time for grocery shopping lately. All he had in his freezer were blue gel ice packs, probably for his knee.

"Oh he did. He said he wanted to sleep with me just to piss you off. Mark said he didn't have a problem with it as long as he got to have Cameron for the same reason." Stacy turned around and smirked.

"If you are going to stay up here, you might as well help us, since you seem to know where everything is." House changed the subject and hobbled over to Chase's answering machine. The number "4" blinked brightly on it. He hit play.

The first three messages were from the same woman, who didn't leave a name, and were mostly scolding him for not calling her back. The fourth was more interesting though. It was from some reporter wanting to interview him about his mother. He mentioned that it was the 6th time he had tried to get a hold of Chase. House locked that little bit of info up for later.

House scanned the entire loft. It was spotless as an operating bay. Even the work out area was neat and organized. It was in sharp contrast to the sloppy look Chase portrayed at the hospital. But House wasn't surprised. Cameron came across as the obsessive one, but her home had been cluttered and messy. Chase was the true neurotic, a closet control freak and House understood. Chase had spent the majority of his life completely out of control. From an addicted wreck of a mother, to a distant and demanding father, his life had always been dictated by other people's whims. This was Chase's way of fighting back, keeping strict control over his own things. It was the same principle as an anorexic who tries to control their out of control situation by limiting food intake. It was the behaviour of someone who wasn't quite right in the head and that meant a lot coming from House.

"Nothing in the bathroom." Wilson commented as he exited the downstairs bathroom.

"Does he actually live here or does he just use this as an address?" House asked as he wondered at the total lack of personal belongings. Everything in the entire place looked like it could have been ordered out of a catalogue, from the matching dishes to the matching couches. There was no personality, no lived in feeling to this place. It was overtly lovely but unbelievably cold. It was exactly like Chase; pretty but off putting, attractive but soulless.

"He lives here." Stacy answered as she moved towards Chase's desk. It was under the second floor and the ceiling was lower and much more cozy feeling. The desk was an anomaly in the place. Where every other piece of furniture looked like it walked off the cover of a euro modern magazine, this desk was old and worn. It was a deep red mahogany with a warm brown leather blotter. Fine inlays and carvings ran around the entire boarder and the feet looked like lion's paws.

"That sticks out like a sore thumb. Do think it's old, or fake old?" Wilson commented.

"It's old." They all turned to see Mark actually feeding the fish. "An antique in fact. It's a partner's desk from Germany. I'd guess it was made around 1892 or so."

"And how would you know?" House questioned.

"My sister is an antique dealer and," he walked over and pulled out one of the drawers, flipping it backwards, "it says so right here. It would be worth more if the set were still together." He showed them the back side of the drawer. It read. 'Fredrick Bauer. Leipzig 1892.'

House stood back and thought about that. He recognized the carvings on the side from the picture in the back of Rowan's book. He had a strong suspicion where the partner to this desk was. "Yes, it would be better if they were still together." House mumbled cryptically. "And while this is all very interesting, is there anything of use in his drawers?"

Stacy rooted around. "Some financial statements. Some stock numbers." She flipped through some more papers.

There were two framed pictures sitting on the corner of the desk. One was a large, sable and black German Shepherd Dog standing on a beach. The dog was staring intently towards something just off camera. There was the slightest hint of a hand visible in the top corner of the picture and House guessed it belonged to Chase. The second picture was of a long and lanky, lilac point Siamese cat. House's mother had had a Siamese, it was clingy, needy, and meowed all the time. He had hated it.

"He has pictures of his pets but not any friends or family." Wilson observed, picking up the picture of the dog. "Cute dog though."

"I always pictured Chase as more of a cat person." Stacy threw in. House had to agree with her. Even though he did call Chase his "puppy" or other dog names, he had to admit that Chase reminded him much more of a feline, from the bright blue-green eyes to his habit of sleeping in sun beams. Chase also had the severe approach avoidance behaviour House always associated with cats. They rub against you begging to be petted but then as soon as you pet them for a while they try to take a chomp out of you. House could never figure out what turned in their little brains to make them go from cuddly and purring to hisses and claws. Then there was also Chase's inherent need to hide pain. He was the emotional version of the cat that tried to jump from the back of the couch to the kitchen counter, only to miss and skid off the side, slide across the floor and crash into a table leg. Then get up with the dignity of a queen and stride off behind the couch to lick a broken bone.

House's attention was drawn back to Wilson as the younger man whistled. "I guess this lies to rest any theory that Chase isn't actually loaded." He handed House a letter from Chase's desk that listed the current worth of his stock portfolio. House wasn't even sure if he could count that high.

"I no longer feel bad for asking him for $1,000."

"Come on, let's look upstairs." Wilson motioned for House to follow him.

Upstairs was a bedroom version of downstairs. Pale wood bed, low lighting, low furniture, and patternless linens made up the room. House sat on the bed and opened the bedside table. There was a small book and a few odd pieces of paper in it. Nothing of any interest, not even a box of condoms. The sheets were soft and expensive, in a pale grey. House also found the lack of a television rather odd.

While Wilson checked the bathroom, House moved to a long row of interconnected wardrobes that acted as a closet. House thought the only thing worse than seeing Chase wear one of his horrifically ugly shirts and ties, was to see them all lined up together in an unending row of hideousness. He moved to the second wardrobe, which was filled with casual clothes, worn jeans and baggie khaki cargo pants. The final one was filled with expensive suits and shoes. All tailor made to fit the Aussie like glove. The type of clothes one would expect a young debutant to wear. House was curious as to what Chase would actually look like in a suit that fit him correctly.

In the back of a drawer in the third wardrobe, House came across a box. He pulled it out and summoned Wilson. The two sat on Chase's bed and examined the contents. They were mostly pictures. Several were of a beautiful blonde woman, with bluish green eyes like Chase. There were a few of Rowan, but most of these seemed to be clippings from medical magazines. The dog and cat also made a reappearance. Then there were a few pictures of a lovely dark skinned woman. There was another of this woman and Chase together at what looked like a banquet of some kind. They were holding hands and looked happy. She had a rock the size of House's head on her marriage finger. Interesting.

But most of the pictures were a girl with brown hair and brown eyes. There was a picture of the two of them canoodling in the snow and the sign behind them was written in French. House flipped the picture over and noticed it was dated earlier in the year. There was also a picture of her when she looked to be about five or six years old. House could tell because she had a very large roman nose that ruined an otherwise attractive face. He flipped that picture over and read the back. "To my best mate, Robin, love C." He read aloud. "I wonder who this C person is and why Chase has so many picture of her?" He questioned.

"Old girlfriend?" Wilson suggested as he picked up a string of onyx and silver rosary beads. The silver was tarnished from years of neglect but it was still beautiful in the ancient, faded ways that hymns remained beautiful. Wilson put them in his pocket, intending to take them to Chase.

House didn't miss Wilson's actions, but didn't comment on them either. "If they are dating, they have been dating since they were in napkins." House held up a picture of Chase and the same girl playing in the sand. Neither could have been more than three years old.

There was also a large coffee table book entitled, "The History of the Australian National Ballet Company." House opened the cover, noting a black and white picture of two beautiful ballet dancers. The woman was very petite and bent nearly backwards in her stance, while the man supported her. House flipped to the dedication page and read through the names. He didn't recognize any of them. He was intrigued though to see the handwritten thank you addressed to Robert.

At the bottom of the box was a large leather bound tome, wrapped in wax paper. House opened it and the binding protested at the movement. He leafed through the pages admiring the colourful pictures but not being able to read it. The illuminated text was all in Czech, which House did not read. Wilson looked over his shoulder. "They look like fairy tales. I think that one is Snow White. And that looks like Sleeping Beauty." Wilson pointed to another page. The paper was yellowed and the ink was faded. House flipped to the front and scanned the lines of unintelligible words till he recognized a date. The book had been printed in 1875. House briefly wondered how much it was worth. He closed it gently and rewrapped it but didn't set it back in the box.

"Come on. We aren't going to find anything here." He rose slowly, not bothering to put Chase's things away. He looked around one more time, a sad feeling sinking in. This wasn't a home, it was a place to sleep until Chase went home. There was nothing comforting or personal about this place. House realized something that he had tried to ignore for months -- Chase never intended to stay past his two-year fellowship. The wayward Aussie had always intended to go back home.

The two were silent as they headed back to the car. Wilson carried both large books House had found. He didn't know why, but something told him to bring them along. As they reached Wilson's car, House slid into the soft leather seat gratefully. He was tired and hurting, even after two Vicodin. Wilson pulled out and the street lights painted light polka dots of colour on the dark pavement. Wilson turned to him.

"You know he will be OK. He is strong and healthy. There is no reason to think he won't come out of this perfectly fine." Jimmy hated seeing House brood like this. He knew House was blaming himself, even though no one could be blamed for diseases. But if there was one thing he had learned, it was that it was human nature to assign blame.

"He is strong and healthy, that's the problem. It doesn't make sense that he is sick." House countered. It was a thought that had been floating around his head for hours now. He voiced it to his friend. "Bugs are opportunistic. They don't attack healthy people if there are unhealthy ones around. Chase is young, in great shape, and take very good care of himself. There is no conceivable way he would have gotten sick before half of the older, fatter, and lazier ER workers and ICU nurses. Viruses don't work that way. They followed the path of least resistance. Chase's immune system should not have just been a roadblock to them, it should have been the Maginot Line."

"Maybe they found a way around it, the Germans did."

"Maybe." They fell silent again, the gears in his head turning.

When they arrived back at the hospital, Wilson was happy to see a message from Rowan Chase on his desk. He fled back to House's office to inform him. They closed the door and dialed the amazingly expensive call to Melbourne. House wondered what time it was there. He wondered what Rowan would sound like. He should be almost dead by now, according to House's reckoning. Though Wilson did mention that Rowan was in a clinical trial for some type of gene therapy so who knew.

It took House three tries to dial the number correctly. There were too many damn digits. Then the ring on the other end sounded strange and foreign. He wondered, fancifully, if that was how Chase felt about American rings.

After three rings a phone menu picked up. "Thank you for calling Monash University Hospital. If you know your party's extension please dial it now. If you do not know, then choose from one of the following options." It took them nearly three minutes to get through to an actual human.

"Hello, Dr. Chase's office." A charming, cultured woman's voice answered.

"It's about damn time." House mumbled. "I need to speak to Dr. Chase." He said more clearly.

"Dr. Chase is very busy. Might I take a message?"

"It is sort of important." Wilson cut House off before the elder man could get to abusive. Luckily House had a speaker phone.

"I can patch you through to one of his staff, if that will help?"

"No, I need to talk to Dr. Chase not one of his ducklings."

"Excuse me sir?" She asked, clearly confused.

"Ma'am. We are calling all the way from America. We really need to speak with Dr. Chase. It's about his son." Wilson tried to plead.

"I'm sorry, but he is in a meeting with patients right now. Would you like us to return your call when he is available? Or if it is about a consult, one of his staff might be able to help you."

House spun his cane around thinking. "Yes, I'd like to talk to one of his staff." Wilson gave him an odd look and he just smiled.

"Please hold." Soft music began to play over the phone.

"I begin to understand Chase better and better." Wilson said to House, who nodded in agreement. He really hoped that Chase didn't have to go through this sort of thing every time he tried to talk to his father but sadly he had a feeling that the Aussie probably did. Though he wasn't sure how often Chase even tried to contact his father. House had gotten the distinct impression that the two Chase's hadn't seen each other in quite awhile.

"This is Dr. Richmond." A deep voice with a thick Aussie accent answered.

"Hello Dr. Richmond, this is Dr. Gregory House, head of the Department of Diagnostics at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. I need a favour." House sounded much kinder than he looked.

"Of course Dr. House, what can we do for you?" The other doctor sounded impressed, perhaps he had heard of House.

"I need you to walk into Dr. Chase's office and tell him that his son is dead."

There was sputtering on the other end of the line. "Excuse me, did you just say"

"Yes, yes. His son is dead. I think he should probably know, and since he won't talk to me, you get to tell him."

"Hold on one moment." House and Wilson could hear other voices joining in discussion as Dr. Richmond hit the hold button. House could just picture it, several young doctors sitting around a large table, discussing what he had just said. They would be the best and brightest in the field, Rowan wouldn't settle for anything else. By all right, Robert should have been there, but he wasn't. He was following a different world-renowned doctor. House was beginning to think that coming to New Jersey and staying so long really had been nothing more than a sad form of rebellion for Chase.

After several minutes passed by, House turned to Wilson. "Do they realize how expensive this phone call is?"

"Don't worry. It isn't like you're the one paying for it."

"Dr. House." Another doctor answered the phone. This one was a girl. He would call her Cameron. They could tell they were now on speakerphone. "Dr. Chase doesn't have a son."

"I assure you that Dr. Rowan Chase most certainly does have a son. Either that or the former Mrs. Chase lied to her little blue eyed son for 16 years." House snarked.

Wilson intervened. "Robert is his name. He works with us in New Jersey. We really need to talk to his father. Can one of you please get Dr. Chase?"

"Who is this?" A suspicious sounding Man questioned. He could be Foreman.

"This is Dr. Wilson."

"Dr. James Wilson, the oncologist?" That would be Dr. Richmond. He was the most soft-spoken and sounded different from the other two. He was the Chase of the bunch.

"Yes. We really need to talk to Dr. Chase." Even Wilson's patience was starting to wear thin.

"Look, kiddies, Chase junior is lying on a slab in a meat locker downstairs, so do you mind terribly telling Rowan so I can discharge my obligation?" House asked. They were put on hold again.

"Why are you lying?" Wilson asked. Imagining the shock Rowan would feel.

"I'm not lying entirely. The ICU is kept cold enough to be a meat locker and the beds aren't very comfy so they could be like slab and he is below us. Besides how the hell else am I supposed to get through to this asshole?"

"You do realize that this is karma? All those other doctors you have put through mazes to get to you are all dancing triumphantly."

"Hah!" Anything else House was planning on saying was cut off by the phone being answered again.

"This is Dr. Chase." The elder doctor Chase sounded a bit raspier and a bit weaker than before but clearly still alive.

"Rowan, good to hear you are still coughing on, so to speak. How is every little thing?" House asked, sounding falsely chipper while doing a rather realistic Bugs Bunny impersonation.

"Dr. House, what do you want?" House almost shivered at the tone. The accent was slightly different and so was the timbre but he swore he heard Robert on the other end.

"I have news." House began but Wilson cut him off.

"Rowan, Robert is sick. We need your help getting his medical records." Wilson knew that Rowan was not House's biggest fan and figured he could head off a fight before it began.

"Sick, what is wrong with him?" Was that concern? No, House decided, just mild curiosity. He could here Rowan shuffling papers in the background.

"We think it is Eastern Equine Encephalitis. We are waiting for the test results. But we need detailed medical records and we can't get them without a family member to sign them out."

"I see." There was a pause. "If it is Eastern Equine Encephalitis, then there is nothing you can do other than supportive therapy. I don't see how having his records will help you."

"We need a detailed history, allergies, sensitivities." Wilson started to plead.

"He isn't allergic to anything that I know of. Now if you will excuse me, I have a meeting to get to. Please give Robert my best." Rowan answered.

House sat seething for a moment. He had followed Chase after he left the hospital the night Rowan was heading back to Australia. He had seen the two talk and Chase give his father a hug. He also hadn't missed the tears in the younger doctor's eyes or the way Rowan seemed to grow calmer afterwards. Rowan was happy, Chase had returned his affection and the status quo was back. It was Robert begging for Rowan's attention, not the other way around. House had sincerely wished he hadn't interfered after he saw that. He wished that Robert had let the bastard leave, thinking that he was hated.

"Listen to me you selfish prick. For once in your miserable life if you can't remember that you are a father, then act like a doctor. We need those files." House snapped.

"Call and leave a message if there is any change." Rowan answered coldly.

"Sure. I won't bother you again until he's dead." House hung up the phone and sighed. "That could have gone better."

"I take back a lot of the nasty things I said about Chase." Wilson said.

"Yeah, maybe I do too." House mused as he watched a tired looking delivery man wonder around confusedly. The man walked up and tapped on their door. He and Wilson were the only two people left in the hall at this time of night. Wilson rose to let the man in.

"I'm looking for Dr. Chase?" The package was a huge stuffed koala hugging two-dozen gourmet cookies. There was also a bag with a bottle of Nyquil, a bottle of aspirin, and a sealed envelope.

"Dr. Chase is busy. I'll sign for it." House offered. He signed the yellow sheet and the young man left. House ripped through the small bag looking puzzled at the contents. He opened the note without even trying to hide it. He wondered how someone outside of the hospital could have known that Chase was sick so fast.

The envelope contained a note and two dummy boarding passes to Italy. The note was a fax but still legible. It read. "Robin, tell that piss stain of a boss of yours that you are taking the first two weeks in September off and you are going skiing with me. And if he doesn't like it he can kiss my ass. You sounded awful when I talked to you and I know that you wouldn't bother to get anything to make yourself feel better so I got some for you. I hope it helps. And stop worrying, everything is going to work out ok. Oh yeah, if that son of a bitch makes one more comment about you not doing a good job on your patients, I want to know. I will personally fly over there and kick him in the groin. – Love C P.S. You had better eat those cookies! I'm tired of your ass looking smaller than mine."

"Interesting." House breathed. Wilson smiled. "Get me Chase's phone."

Wilson retrieved the phone from Chase's lab coat pocket, where it was sitting in the conference room. He handed it to House. "What are you hoping for, a personal number for Rowan so you can bug him at home?"

"The note said that this C person talked to him earlier and he sounded awful. I'm hoping that she will show up on his caller ID." He fumbled around trying to find the call history on someone else's phone. He finally found a 22-minute long call from the night before.

"How do you know it is a girl?" Wilson questioned. Though he did remember the messages on the answering machine in Chase's loft, that girl was familiar enough with Chase that she assumed he would recognize her voice without leaving a name or number.

"Just look at this girly writing." House handed Wilson the note. The letters were rounded and loopy, clearly a girl's handwriting. "Here goes." House punched the talk button on Chase's phone, knowing that if Chase were awake and near him he would probably be in danger of bodily harm for interfering in the Aussie's personal life again.

House was prepared to leave a message when someone finally answered. "Hey, mate, how are you feeling? I wasn't expecting to hear from you again so soon." It was clearly a girl with an accent exactly like Chase's, complete with the upward inflection in the middle of 'mate.'

"Sorry, this isn't your 'mate'." House tried to mimic an Aussie accent.

"Who is this and how did you get Robin's phone?"

"This is the piss stain." House answered.

"Dr. House I presume."

"Give the girl a gold star. I am calling on behalf of Chase."

"On his behalf, why? What is going on? Where is he?"

"By the way, who is this?"

"This is Cassandra, his best friend, what the hell is going on?" She sounded rather angry. House backed off, he needed her responsive to him, not fighting with him.

"Chase is sick."

"I know. He told me yesterday when I talked to him. Isn't he feeling any better?"

"Not exactly. He has encephalitis and probably meningitis. He is lying unconscious in the ICU." House had to immediately pull the phone away from his ear to save his hearing from the over dramatized shriek. "Don't panic yet, he isn't dead."

"How sick is he?" House could hear her sniffling in the background. At least she sounded upset, unlike Rowan.

"Menigitis is serious, it is an inflammation of the meninges, the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord. Because it is viral it probably isn't life threatening. The encephalitis is much more dangerous. That is basically an infection in his brain."

"Is he going to be alright?" She sounded like she was panicking again.

"I don't know, but I need your help. I don't suppose you are actually related to him, are you?"

"No. We aren't related, just friends."

"Damn," House hissed. "Are you the girl he has all those pictures of?"

"I have no idea, what did they look like?" This seemed like a ridiculous question to her.

"Brown hair, brown eyes, big nose, a little chubby." House described the person he saw in the pictures with Chase.

"I used to be a little chubby, but not anymore." She snapped. "Yes, that is me. Why? How can this help him?" She was quickly figuring how fast she could get to New Jersey, she didn't care how angry she made the concert promoters, Robin was more important.

"I don't suppose you know his father, Dr. Rowan Chase?" House asked.

"Know him and will gladly do a jig on his grave, when the bastard finally kicks off." She snapped.

"Not a fan of his I see." House mused. He wondered if she knew that Rowan was sick.

"Or of you, so what does this have to do with Robin being sick? Do you need Rowan to come and take care of him, if so, forget it, he won't." She remembered all the times Chase had needed his father and been left out in the cold. She remembered when Robert had been 6 and had had been sick at school and his father was supposed to pick him up but had left him waiting there until three hours after school let out. Or when Robert had and dealing with his mother's trial. Rowan had completely avoided his son and Chase literally worried himself into a nervous breakdown, utterly alone and ignored. There were other times too, smaller and larger things that Rowan had missed or overlooked. All of it proving that even though Rowan was a good person and a great doctor, he was a lousy and unreliable father.

"Why don't you like me, you don't even know me?" House questioned, momentarily sidetracked.

"Let's see. Could it be the way you insult Robin, torture him, don't let him take time off, belittle him, and generally treat him like shit; or do we need to get specific?" She spat.

House covered the phone and mouthed to Wilson, "What a bitch." Then talked to her. "So you know Rowan. Is there any way you can get him to release Chase's medical records. We can't get them without a family member and he refused, when we asked him."

"So you want me to try and talk him into it? What makes you think he is going to listen to me?" She questioned, the sound of tears rising in her voice again.

"Because at least he doesn't hate you like he does me."

"I'll do what I can." She took a deep hitching breath, trying to stop the tears as she wrote the fax number for House's office down. "Please tell Robin that I'll be there as soon as I can and I love him."

House had a momentary surge of sympathy. "Don't worry, we'll take good care of him." He hung up the phone and turned to Wilson.

"So can she help?" The oncologist questioned.

"I hope so. I'm hungry."

Wilson left to order pizza and get some beer and House limped up to check on his duckling. He normally wouldn't ever go near a patient, but he supposed this was different. He entered the ward and felt glares burn into him from every angle. The nurses blamed him for their favourite doctor getting sick and truth be told he blamed himself too. He entered the room to find it empty and the lights on. House dimmed them so only a singular light was on in the corner. He figured Chase would like it better that way. He had learned that, though the Aussie might like to bask in the sun, he preferred low lighting. Also, bright lights would hurt his eyes when he woke up. House was sure the blonde would, he had to.

He limped over and picked up the chart. Reading through Foreman's chicken scratch, he had bad hand writing even for a doctor. He noted the antibiotics were doing nothing for the respiratory symptoms. It made no sense. How had Chase caught both a brain infection and a lung infection without having been in the same place as the others? He took down a stethoscope and listened to Chase's lungs. There was a definite wheezing and crackling. He straightened and sighed. The CDC would be here by morning to close this place down for an epidemic if he didn't figure out how Chase had gotten sick.

He looked at Chase's temperature on the monitor, it was holding steady at around 104.5. It was high enough to cause massive lethargy but not quite high enough to completely poach his brain. He noticed that tears streamed from the Aussie's closed eyes. House opened one and shone a penlight into it. The pupils constricted and dilated appropriately. It was a good sign. The tearing became more profuse when the light was introduced so House chalked it up to pain. Full-blown encephalitis was supposed to be excruciatingly painful. He wished he could give Chase something for it but he knew he couldn't for the same reason they weren't really giving him anything for the nausea and vomiting. It was bad practice to give central nervous system depressants to someone whose central nervous system was so far down in the hole.

House thought about his youngest duckling. It was hard to see him like this. Not sleeping, because Chase tended to do that frequently in the office. If Foreman were bored he would read or write. If Cameron were bored she would go through his mail or look at vacation spots she wasn't brave enough to go to online. Chase did cross words and if that didn't work he slept. But seeing him looking so sick was difficult. He cared for all his ducklings. He respected Foreman like few other doctors. Foreman was outwardly tough, strong, and surprisingly well adjusted. He attempted to control any situation he came in contact with. House liked that, except when Foreman was trying to control him. Cameron, he did really like. Not in a romantic way but in a mentor way. She could be a wonderful doctor if she would just toughen up and learn to trust herself as much as she trusted other people. But she was too sympathetic in a selfish way. Her worry over patients was actually a worry of how she would react to the news.

Then there was Chase, the most intuitive and caring of all the ducklings. He knew he would get argument over that theory. But it was true. Cameron's caring was one sided, she cared about everyone and everything, rendering her emotions meaningless. Chase picked and chose which things he would care about, making it all the more important. Chase had a well-honed ability to read people and determine their moods based on subtle clues that even House had a hard time finding. Then modify his behaviour to cause the least amount of trouble. It was ingrained in the Aussie's psyche to do this as it was with most people who had survived abusive or addicted parents. Chase would have corrected him there. The one time he had mentioned abuse to Chase, the blonde had quickly said that his parents had never abused him. But House disagreed. What his parents had done to him might not have fit into the classical definition of abuse but it was certainly mistreatment and had certainly left its mark on Chase.

This skill of Chase's was a serious plus. It allowed him to get people to open up to him, to trust him. He knew when to be reassuring, like with Gabe. When to be silly, like he was with Andie. Or, when to be serious, like with the nun. But it also helped him be unbelievably manipulative, when he wanted to be, like playing House for a fool with Vogler. Chase had known just the right way to react to get House to distrust Cameron. It was bloody brilliant. It was a skill that would have served a priest well.

Chase convulsed and hacked up thick, yellow sputum onto his chin. House looked around for anyone watching him. When he saw that he was alone, he reached over and wiped his duckling's chin. He then stroked the Aussie's blonde hair off his fevered brow. Before he could do anything else even remotely kind, he heard footsteps approaching and left as fast as he could.

Chase minimally acknowledged that House was there. He could barely see past the agonizingly bright light the doctor shined in his eyes but he knew it was House. It was the sound of his gate that gave it away. House was tired and in pain because it was a step, click, drag rhythm rather than a step, click, step. Chase had learned to recognize the difference early on. The drag meant pain and pain meant a really bad mood. He felt House touch his hair. It was strange, House never touched him. His mother used to that, when he was very young, but that had been so long ago he could barely remember.

Dream

_It was raining out and Chase dropped his coat and books by the door. He was burning hot, and that seemed strange to him because he remembered being cold. But trying to think about such differences was like trying to catch steam, impossible and pointless. He wasn't sure if he was remembering or dreaming._

_He continued into the house and saw his mother and her best friend, Cass's mother, Siobhan. She was a former model and B-list actress mostly famous for being famous. Chase hated her. But that wasn't right either. He hadn't hated her when his mother was still alive. He had resented her, sure, because she was always drugging up and boozing with his mother but he hadn't started hating her until she tried to have power of attorney taken away from him so she could keep his mother on life support._

_He shook his head, trying to ignore the strange thoughts. Nothing looked right in his home. The walls were the wrong colour and the angles seemed too sharp. He walked into the den and found his mother laying on her back laughing at something. Siobhan trailed her hand up his mother's stomach, making her giggle even more. She was beautiful, Chase had almost forgotten how lovely she had been._

"_You're home, luv." She sat up and said. As she rose and walked towards him he could smell the stench of gin on her. She ran her tongue over her teeth repeatedly. She had been doing cocaine too. His heart sank as he saw the central line catheter outlined under her shirt._

"_I'm leaving, sweetheart." Siobhan said and deeply kissed his mother. Chase turned away. It always made him uncomfortable when they did that in front of him. "I'll see you later, too, Robin." She walked up to him, leaning over, running her tongue over his lips and chin. "You are growing up to be so handsome." He wanted to push her away and tell her to stop touching him. He hated, HATED, when she did things like that to him. He knew she was joking, she was his best friend's mother and had known him since the day he was borne. Both Siobhan and his mother found it amusing to tease him like that but it just made him feel like he wanted to jump out of his own skin. Forget Cameron being uncomfortable with sex. Imagine growing up with a hyper Catholic, extremely repressive father and an omni sexual mother and her bi sexual girlfriend. Chase realized he had a trillion to one shot of ever having a healthy sexual relationship. No wonder he wanted to go into the priesthood._

_The tall New Zealander sauntered out, leaving Chase alone with is mother. She reeked of liquor and the smell turned his stomach. She staggered and he steadied her. There was something disgustingly familiar about this scene. "Mum, you've been drinking again."_

"_Just a little nip as a send off before I have to start that stupid chemo junk." She slurred as he led her into the kitchen and sat her at the breakfast table. She reached up and stroked his damp hair off his forehead. "You shouldn't cover your pretty eyes, my beautiful Robin." Chase's heart constricted when he heard that. No one but Cass used his nickname anymore._

"_You have liver cancer, you can't drink." He pleaded with her. He felt tears prickle his eyes lids and took a deep breath._

"_It's nothing, I'll be right as rain in no time." She slumped at the table, her head resting on her outstretched arm._

"_No you won't." He pulled down a heavy copper pot to make some soup for her. She needed to eat something before she took her pills._

"_Don't be such a stickler, Robin." She sat up. "I'm not hungry, I'm going to go lie down."_

"_No." He snapped. "If you were well enough to drink a pint of gin, then you jolly well can eat some soup." He slammed a drawer shut._

"_Don't use that tone with me."_

_He sighed and turned around. "You promised me. You promised me that you weren't going to drink anymore." He now felt tears running down his cheeks and wiped them away. That was the bad part about having an alcoholic for a parent. Not that she drank, but that her gin was more important to her than Robert._

"_You should be used to me breaking promises by now. I am a horrible mother. You would be better off with your father but he doesn't want you." She started to cry. She always started to cry when he got mad at her. Then she made him feel guilty for getting angry. So he had learned, year after year, to show less and less anger and unhappiness. To swallow it like a bitter draught because if he didn't he would end up feeling much worse in the long run._

"_No you aren't, mum. That's not what I said." She cried a lot and he always held her while she did. "Sit up so you can eat." He said, not feeling particularly magnanimous today. He had a headache, a very, very bad headache._

"_I don't want it, I don't feel well. I think I need to lie down." He looked over in time to see her start to vomit up gin and lemon cordial all over the table. He quickly got a pan under her face._

_She continued to retch and he collected her hair and supported her, muttering soothing sounds. He was used to this, it happened at least once a week, sometimes more since her liver started going. But soon she started to bring up blood and lots of it. He dropped her hair to run for the phone and call an ambulance but the phone wasn't where it was supposed to be. He looked all over but couldn't find it, when he did, he couldn't seem to dial the numbers correctly._

_Eventually he managed to dial and picked her up and took her to the vestibule just inside of the front door. She continued to vomit up blood and he tried to calculate how much she was loosing, how long she could survive without a transfusion. There was a knock at the door and the medics packaged her up but they left him behind. He tried to follow but when he tried to run the road turned to sand under his feet and bogged him down. He was forced to walk slowly but he was lost on the streets he had known for years. He wanted to cry in frustration._

_When he finally did reach the hospital it wasn't the one she had been taken to, at least not the one his memory kept telling him it should be. But he knew it, it was PPTH. He found his mother, on a bed and still bleeding. He looked around wondering why no one was doing anything. Cuddy looked at him down her long nose and then turned around to buff her nails._

"_Why isn't anyone helping her?" He shrieked. He felt like he was choking again._

"_We were waiting for you." His father said. Why was his father there?_

"_What can I do?" He asked._

"_You are a doctor aren't you?" His father asked very reasonably. "You have 60 seconds." Rowan clicked a stopwatch like a coach timing a race._

_Chase looked around and suddenly noticed he was in front of a large class of medical students, all intently staring at him. He felt totally exposed. He hated being the center of attention. Bright lights blared down on him making him even hotter than he was. He could see photographers off in the corner, snapping pictures of him. He felt like he couldn't breathe._

"_Forty-five seconds." Rowan warned._

_Chase looked through drawers and cupboards trying to find the instruments he needed but it was all missing. When he did find what he needed, he couldn't get her intubated correctly. He looked around for help. House sat in the front row, twirling his can and petting Wilson where he sat at House's feet clothed in pajamas, eating balls of hair. Chase gagged. He switched to trying to get a mainline IV but kept missing the vein and stabbing himself. He heard a buzzer sound._

"_Sorry, times up. My turn" Rowan said and jumped down from his perch on a table. He swaggered over, seeming to stand at least a foot taller than his son. "Go sit in the corner, like a good boy." Rowan handed his son a bible. Chase opened it and the words turned to spiders that spilled from the page, crawling all over him. He tried to brush them away but they kept biting him and burrowing under his fair skin, leaving angry red weals. He pulled his sleeves down, trying to cover them and concentrate on his mother._

_Rowan turned his back, blocking Robert's view of his mother. Chase tried to move to see, but his hair and sweat kept falling into his eyes. He was so bloody hot he could hardly think. "There," Rowan said and Chase's mother sat up. "You, just don't have the touch."_

_There was loud applause and Rowan took a bow. Chase fell on his knees, feeling weak and sick. This had to be a dream. He kept thinking. It had to be._

Thirty minutes after his phone call with Cass, House and Wilson sat eating pizza when a fax came in. Wilson immediately gathered the many pages. As he was waiting for the transmission to end, Chase's phone rang. House unashamedly answered it.

"Dr. House." It was Cassandra. Her voice was nasal and hoarse. She had clearly been crying.

"Yeah, yeah. It's me." He answered, more interested in the papers in Wilson's hands than Chase's friend.

"Did he send you what you needed?" She and Rowan had argued, like they usually did if forced into contact with each other for any length of time. She despised Rowan for what he had done to his son. Between the extremely repressive Catholic upbringing, the demands for perfection, and his leaving; Rowan had twisted his son into a ball of depression, anxiety, and trust issues. Rowan hated her because she was too much like Chase's mother, Abagaile. She was a self centered, irresponsible fame whore, who drank too much, did too many drugs, and expected other to pick up the pieces. All Rowan could see was the potential hurt Robert would suffer when she finally crashed.

"Yes, sure." House was already scanning over what Wilson handed him.

"How is he doing?" She asked with a slight hitch in her voice. She didn't think she could handle loosing her best friend.

"Fine I guess. I'll tell him to call if he wakes up." House distractedly said as he hung up on her mid question, looking at Wilson.

"He was thorough if nothing else. He sent Robert's full records, Robert's mother's full records, and his own. Very complete." Wilson commented as he stacked the pages up in front of House.

"Gimme, gimme," House demanded of Chase's records. Wilson settled for Chase's mother's, he had already seen Rowan's.

They read silently for a while and Wilson's eyes started to get wider as he continued to read. House was making notes on the back of a napkin. "I can see why Rowan wouldn't want us to see this," Wilson held up Abagaile's records, "It is nothing but page after page of drunk and alcohol related problems. 'Brought to hospital by nine year old son treated for Gram negative pneumonia. Drug overdose, brought in by 11 year old son. Ruptured esophagus, brought in by 12 year old son. Cirrhosis, liver cancer.' This file reads like a study of how alcohol kills." Wilson looked up at his friend, who seemed a bit taken back. "But why wouldn't he want us to see Chase's file?"

"I think I know." House murmured and then read from the file. "'Admitted through triage with accidental drug overdose. Respirations were shallow and weak, pulse at 38. Patient was unconscious and unresponsive. Performed gastric lavage. Retrieved between 20-30 semi digested meperidine tablets.' Chase would have been eighteen."

"Meperidine, he ODed on Demerol?" Wilson questioned, finding it odd considering that Chase was usually the first to comment on someone else's potential drug use.

"You don't accidentally overdose on 30 pills that is 30 times the dosage. You want to get high you take two maybe three. The only reason you take 30 is because you want to off yourself."

"You think Chase tried to kill himself. Massively Catholic, was almost a priest, Chase tried to kill himself?" Wilson was stunned to say the least.

"It fits. Chase makes a lot of cracks about suicide. And most patients with even moderate depression contemplate suicide. And you, yourself, put him on drugs for sever depression. Why would he be any different?"

"It doesn't fit. His faith alone would prohibit it."

"Chase left the church. Think about, he would have been 18, mother's dead, dad ignores him, god forgot about him, and he are stuck in med school even though he doesn't want to be a doctor. Add to that a massive chemical imbalance in his brain, limiting happy thoughts and badda bing, badda boom a bottle of pills looks pretty good."

"I guess, but it just seems so proactive for Chase." Wilson had always seen the Aussie more as the type who reacted to things rather than instigating them. They were a lot alike that way.

"If things get bad enough he will take charge. If he thinks he doesn't have any other choice." House mused.

"This is all very interesting, and slightly upsetting, but it has nothing to do with Chase getting sick now. What else is in there?"

"Let's see, he has had malaria, twice, bronchopneumonia, two massive reconstructions on his knee and one smaller scope." House read off.

"No wonder he doesn't want to have anything done to it again. What else?"

"He was prescribed albuterol for the pneumonia."

"So?"

"Albuterol is for asthma not pneumonia. It loosens the muscles around the bronchial tubes but wouldn't do anything for a long infection."

"Maybe he had bronchitis too."

"Or maybe he has asthma."

"Chase? Mr. Iron Man triathlete, does not have asthma. People who have a chronic respiratory condition do not run marathons in New Jersey, they do not do bike races, and they most certainly do not swim miles and miles in a pool." Wilson commented. His little brother had asthma and had grown from a short, skinny, weak kid to a short, skinny, weak adult. He was not capable of walking up a flight of stairs without wheezing, much less running miles like Chase did.

"Juvenal asthma actually." House said as he turned a page around for Wilson to examine.

"Well he clearly doesn't suffer from it anymore."

"I'm going home." House abruptly gathered his things, the files, and the two books he took from Chase's apartment and headed out. Wilson cleaned up the mess and went home as well, hoping Julie was already asleep when he got there.

House sat down in his leather lounger, downed some bourbon, turned on his Ipod to some cool jazz, and started to look over the files. Something didn't fit, he wasn't sure what, but something just wasn't right. Normally, he didn't care how people got sick, just what was wrong with them. But he knew what was wrong with Chase; the puzzle was how it happened.

He read through the medical files over and over, thinking about what he had learned. Chase had told him that his mother had drunk herself to death. No specifics were mentioned, and House hadn't felt like pushing his luck. But now that he read the file, he couldn't believe that his laid back Aussie duckling had been raised in such a toxic home. It was easy to tell Chase had daddy issues, it was in the way he never, ever mentioned his father or the way his entire body tensed up when Rowan was mentioned, like someone was about to punch him. But House had never guessed at anything else. Chase seemed so calm and normal.

He read through Chase's file again and again, looking for some clue as to why he was the one who had gotten sick. He couldn't find one. Chase was a normal, tough, guy. All his injuries were linked to sports and he had only ever had two even remotely dangerous illnesses. Even when flus and colds went around the hospital, Chase never caught them, it was always Cameron.

Stumped, he switched to the large book about the ballet. He paged through it, trying to see why it was important to Chase. On page 23, there was a full colour picture of a beautiful blonde, with of set blue green eyes he swore he looked at every day. Under the picture read Abagaile Pronásledovat 1957-1995. House read a short narrative about "the greatest ballerina of the 20th century" as they called her. He flipped a few pages further and found a picture of a very young looking Chase, standing beside a casket covered in white roses. On the opposite page was another picture of Chase and a few other people. They were all dressed in tuxedos. Everyone was smiling except for Chase.

He continued to read on about the trial and the controversy surrounding her death. It was insane, making a 16 year old handle that kind of a decision. And then someone making Chase go through a several month long, highly publicized court battle over it. Something like that could really mess with a kid's head. It only made Chase's choice of becoming an intensivist all the more masochistic, since he was now the one that generally made the call to discuss life support termination with families.

House closed the book and thought for a moment. Chase was one of the most secretive people he had ever met in his life. His youngest duckling was a master at evading personal questions and if cornered, giving the most bizarre non sequitur non answers to simple questions. It kept House on his toes and had almost become a game between the two of them. House trying to guess something that Chase didn't want known. It was fun but it also told him something about the Aussie, he wasn't sure what. He picked up the book of Czech fairy tales and began to leaf through it. Did Chase not like people knowing things because then they would feel sorry for him? Did he not like them knowing things because they would laugh at him? Or did he think that people would hate him if they knew certain things? He wasn't sure.

He looked through the finely illustrated book, enjoying the gorgeous pictures even if he couldn't read the text. He managed to figure out most of the stories from the drawings. There was the 12 Dancing Princesses, Snow White, Rapunzel, and a host of others. He stopped and looked at a picture of a lovely blonde woman laid out on an elaborate bed. Her hands were crossed over her breast and she was surrounded by a wall of thorns. Sleeping Beauty, or Briar Rose, as the non Disney version was often called. House had to admit he liked the Grimm version better, not so goody goody. Then something dawned on him. "Germany!" He shouted and downed another cup of liquor and limped towards the door, dialing his phone as fast as he could.

Twenty minutes later, Foreman, Cameron, Wilson, and Cuddy sat in his office staring at him. Foreman looked interested but mildly irritated. Cameron looked hopeful and slightly teary eyed. Wilson looked amused and slightly relieved, and Cuddy looked murderous. He decided to look at Wilson.

"I found Germany." House stated.

"I didn't know you had lost it. I assumed it had been left right beside France." Wilson commented.

"Oh, House has lost it, completely." Foreman said.

"No, no, keep up. France," House said as he sketched a crude map of Europe on the white board.

"I thought we were talking about Germany." Wilson asked.

"We will be."

"Are you drunk?" Cuddy asked.

"Very probably. But that is beside the point. Now, history lesson. After World War I, France was afraid of being invaded by Germany again. So all the French military geniuses," House paused. "Ok the one guy and his assistant, got together and devised a cunning plan to keep the German's out of France. They build a row of defenses along this line." House drew a red arch across the most likely place for Germany to invade France. "It was called the Maginot Line. It was supposed to have been impenetrable."

"Why do you still have a license?" Cuddy questioned, just as confused as everyone else.

"Because I'm good and I just saved our hospital millions on quarantine costs. Now be quiet or I'll make you stay after class. Anyway, when Germany decided to invade France, they knew they couldn't get through the Maginot Line. So what did they do? They went around it." House drew an arch showing the route the Blitzkrieg took, completely bypassing France's master defense." They all stared at him. "Do I have to draw a picture? Wait I just did." He smiled.

"House, you aren't making sense." Foreman pointed out.

"I am making perfect sense, you just can't follow me. Chase's body's defense system is the Maginot line. We assumed that the virus found a way to break the line. We assumed that he inhaled the virus and that was how he was infected. But he didn't, the virus was like Germany, it found a way around."

"No, if he didn't inhale it, then why does he have respiratory symptoms?" Foreman questioned. Wilson watched the two spar, enjoying it. For once it wasn't him fighting with House.

"He doesn't have respiratory symptoms." House countered

"Yes he does. His 02 stats are low and his breathing is laboured." Cameron pointed out.

"Ok, but they aren't symptoms of the illness, only a by product; completely irrelevant."

"His chest sounds like an emphysemic. He can barely breathe on his own." Now Foreman again.

"But it isn't responding to antibiotics like everyone else, because he doesn't have what they have. Give him some steroids it will go away."

"Steroids? We can't risk compromising his immune system." Cameron this time.

"He doesn't have pneumonia, he has asthma!" House almost shouted.

"What?" Both ducklings questioned.

House sighed and gathered his cane, heading out of the door. "Where did you people go to medical school?" They headed to Chase's room. When they reached it, House produced a stethoscope and handed it to Foreman. "Pneumonia produces green or dark brown sputum and a crackling sound in the lungs." He stressed the last word. "Chase has yellow sputum, excess mucus from his bronchial tubes. And there is more wheezing than crackling in his upper chest. Also the chest CT Scan was clean." Foreman listened and damned if House wasn't right.

"Ok, so maybe it is just asthma, even though I find it really difficult to believe that Chase has asthma, that isn't dispositive that the disease has gone air borne."

"Just because the virus concentrates in his brain doesn't mean there aren't rogue ones floating around his entire body, they set off an allergenic asthmatic reaction in his lungs."

"All right, viruses are a trigger for many asthmatics." Cameron pointed out. "But what about Germany? How did he get infected if not through inhaling it."

"It was introduced directly into his blood stream." House stated.

"How? The nurses and I checked him over, head to toe, no cuts, no bites, no nothing. How would it have gotten in his blood stream?" Foreman questioned. He and two nurses, though several had volunteered, had looked Chase over while he lie in bed just a few hours ago.

"Because, Sleeping Beauty pricked his finger." House removed the stat monitor on Chase's index finger to reveal the small but deep puncture wound. The cardinal rule in the ICU was that the stat monitor was never removed from a patient unless they were discharged or dead. Foreman had followed that rule and kept the clip covering the tip of Chase's index finger.

"He has a cut on his finger." Cameron stated the obvious.

"Very good. Now," House held up his cane, "what is this?" He talked to her like she was a child. "He was pricked by an infected needle. Anything that can be transmitted via mosquitoes can be transmitted via the blood. Only with a mosquito, the virus enters through a small blood vessel then travels throughout the body and lymphatic system. Chase by passed that step and introduced it straight into his blood stream."

"That was why the incubation period was so short." Wilson followed House completely now.

"I'll inform the Health Authority and the CDC." Cuddy said, turning to leave. "And Dr. House, I want you in my office tomorrow morning to discuss your staff scheduling." House pulled a face at her as she left.

"Keep him on antibiotics and supportive therapy. Get a respiratory specialist up here to do something about his asthma." House ordered his ducklings.

"What are you going to do?" Foreman questioned.

"I am going home." He limped out, Wilson following.

When they were out of earshot, Wilson asked him. "That was a long shot. You were lucky he had actually pricked himself."

"I am as brilliant as I am modest." House beamed.

"You went and checked before you started your speech, didn't you?"

"Of course. Did you think I was going to look like fool in front of Cuddy?"

"You really are insufferable."

"And your cute when you use big words." House batted his blue eyes at his friend.

"Go home." They parted ways and headed to their respective cars.

The next day House arrived not so bright and early. The first thing he did was wonder by the ICU, trying not to look like he was checking on Chase. Then he saw Cameron, damn he was caught.

"Dr. House." She smiled at him. "He is stable. His fever is down a little and his breathing is much better but he still hasn't woken up. Foreman said we shouldn't start worrying about that yet, though." She filled him in. She then started telling him about the other patients.

'Oh yeah, they had other patients, didn't they.' "Good. Keep me posted." He limped off.

"Dr. House, Dr. Cuddy came by looking for you."

"Then remind me to hide." He limped off to Wilson's office.

The day was spent mostly in the clinic and getting reamed by Cuddy and Stacy for making Chase work illegal hours. It wasn't like he had beaten the guy or anything. Though he had to admit watching Cuddy and Stacy both act all authoritative at him was sort of a turn on. Of course they both had to take stupid Chase's side. Of course they were both soft on the blonde. They couldn't resist his big puppy dog eyes, and his floppy puppy dog hair, and his "look at me I'm a lonely little guy far away from home," schick. They both seemed to have forgotten that the backstabbing Aussie had sold him out! But even his usual fuming couldn't distract him from Chase.

It was late, almost 7pm when he finally couldn't keep himself from checking on Chase in person. He took two Vicodin, waited 15 minutes, then hobbled downstairs to see his hurt duckling. Dr. Gardner watched him suspiciously as he approached Chase's room. He knew that she and Chase were tight. She was always bringing him home cooked dinners and offering to fix him up with people. He had noticed that Chase accepted the dinners but declined the dates.

He checked Chase's vitals and was pleased to note that the Aussie's fever was down to under 104 but he still hadn't woken up yet. House pulled a chair up beside the prone man. House looked at his profile and mused how strange he looked. The nurses had shaved him and brushed his hair, he bet there had been a fight over who got that duty. Chase looked unbelievably young, lying like this, young and defenseless. House decided that was what made Chase look so different. He wasn't guarded. There was no cultivated laid back attitude, no attempt to seem like something other than what he was, no thorny walls and giant 'keep out' signs. When all these contrivances were stripped from the young man, he looked like another person. House fancied that it was what Chase should have looked like, had circumstances not kicked him in the balls at every turn.

The elder doctor couldn't help himself and brushed Chase's hair back from his forehead. What was even stranger, he continued to stroke the soft, silky strands. House was insanely jealous of Chase's hair. The Aussie had an ugly hair cut but great hair. He thought about his Fellow. Chase was brilliant without being pompous, creative without being too flakey, compassionate without being false or clingy, and talented without taking it for granted. Chase had a wicked sense of humour and a strong sense of loyalty but wasn't afraid to protect himself if he had to. Of course, House would much prefer that the blonde was more straight forward about it rather than back stabbing people like some political ninja. Chase had flaws too. He was needy, emotionally closed off, often sarcastic, and had a real problem saying no to people. But all in all, he was a good person. That was why House couldn't fathom how cold Rowan was to his son. He, himself, seemed more worried about Robert than his own father. Maybe Rowan was worried but just didn't know how to show it, House supposed. However, growing up with someone that cold and sterile explained a plethora of Chase's weird little neurosis. Now, if he could just figure out Foreman's.

House sat there for a few minutes, stroking his duckling's hair and talking to him quietly, when he noticed that Chase had moved into his touch. The motion was like a cat leaning into a pet. "Chase," House said sternly, "open your eyes." Slowly Chase slid his eyes open then immediately snapped them shut as soon as the bright light over his head hit them. House fairly flew, at least for him, across the room and shut off all but a small light. He touched Chase's cheek. "Open your eyes up again." Chase only opened one eye at first, making sure the room was dark. House bellowed to the nurse on duty, telling her to page Dr. Foreman immediately. Chase winced at the loud noise. "How are you feeling?"

"Head hurts." Chase croaked. In fact, everything hurt but his head was the most sever.

"I'm not surprised." House smiled at him, luckily Chase's eyes were closed and he didn't see it.

"Tired." Chased muttered.

"Ple-ase," House said sarcastically, "you have been asleep for about 30 hours straight. It's time to wake up little Briar Rose." House told him.

"What is going on?" Foreman came charging in the room, making as much noise as humanly possible, followed by Cameron.

"Please be quiet." Chase whimpered.

Foreman was at his co-worker's side in a split second. "Chase, look at me." He commanded as he shown a penlight in Chase's eyes. The blonde tried to pull his head away to get away from the light. To him it felt like the light was burning out his eyes then pouring acid through threw the burned out sockets into his brain. Foreman watched the way Chase's pupils reacted and his eyes tracked motion. There was no vertical gaze nystagmus but there was still fixed and horizontal. That was good. He kindly turned the light off when he noticed the patient's eyes were watering. "Chase who is the president?"

Chase mumbled something that sounded like "OVOT"

Foreman looked over at the other two doctors, noticing Wilson had joined them. "Did he say 'ovot'?" He questioned.

"I think he said 'of what'." Cameron supplied.

"Of Disney." Foreman snapped, assuming his question was self-explanatory.

"Michael Eisner, I think." Chase murmured, wanting to go back to sleep.

"Wrong, he was voted out." Wilson said. Foreman glared at him. "What, I own stock."

"He obviously can still talk and think." Foreman stated.

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here." Chase whispered, quickly loosing his battle to stay awake.

"Sorry, your doing fine. Go back to sleep and we'll talk more later." Foreman told him. It was a good sign that Chase was so alert. Foreman was pleased and smiled at the other doctors as the moved out of the room. House turned off even the small light, and drew the curtains, assuming Chase would prefer the room as dark as they could get it.

They made their way back to the Diagnostics department to celebrate. Foreman seemed confident that Chase looked good. They opened some Champaign from Wilson's never ending supply and Cameron hugged everyone. She actually hugged House twice but who was counting. As the festivities wound down, House was left alone with Wilson.

"So, are you going to fire him or forgive him?" He asked his friend.

"I'm not sure yet."

"Yes you are, you just don't want to admit it." Wilson rose to leave and House followed. The last thing he did before he left the hospital was the leave the large tome of fairy tales beside Chase's bed, with the rosary marking the page for Sleeping Beauty.

TBC


	4. And they lived unhapily ever after

A/N: Long wait huh? I took my time on this section and still am not thrilled with it but I give up. When I can't enjoy my holiday in Hawaii (I ran the Iron Man there last weekend, forgive I'm proud of myself) because I am obsessing over whether I made House too nice or too mean, it is time to wash my hands of it and just post the stupid thing.

I know it's long, but hope you enjoy it anyway. And thanks for all the reviews glowing and otherwise.

Disclaimer: I don't own these people and a good thing too because I'm not very nice to them.

Sleeping Beauty 4

Chase slumped over the wheeley side table with his head pillowed on his bent arm. Foreman bustled around the room, readying his props to test Chase's neurological state and cognitive function. Chase closed his eyes under his glasses as his vision went double and wonky again. It was nauseating. He coughed, trying to cover up the fact he was about to hurl. He had slept nearly undisturbed since House and the other's left over 12 hours ago but was still tired enough to sleep another twelve.

"You ok, man? We can wait till later to do this." Foreman offered. He had dropped by about an hour and a half ago to test Chase, but sitting up had made the Aussie toss his cookies so Foreman decided to postpone it. Chase still looked pretty piss poor but he hadn't thrown up yet.

"No, if you insist on doing this, let's just get it over with. Even though I told you, I'm fine." Chase answered. He really didn't feel fine, but Foreman didn't need to know that. Even talking made his head explode in pain, coughing was even worse.

"Clearly, that's why you are lying in a bed in your precious ICU. Sorry if I don't believe you but you lost some serious street credit when it comes to your ability to gauge your own health. Considering you kept telling us you were 'fine, just tired' while you were walking around with a 104 fever and a potentially lethal brain infection."

"Hey, House finally let me take a day off, didn't he?" Chase defended himself, giving a weak smile. It hurt to smile.

Foreman laid a set of cards down in front of Chase. Each depicted a scene with a girl and a horse. Chase looked at them blandly, not even bothering to lift his head up. Foreman had a sneaking suspicion the blonde felt worse than he was letting on. There was no way Chase had recovered from full blown encephalitis this quickly. "Arrange these cards to make a story." He sat down, ready to take notes.

Chase looked at the cards for a moment. The first one showed a girl happily riding a horse, the second showed a girl walking up to a horse. The third showed a girl driving along a barn road. And the fourth showed the girl running with a saddle in hand. They were clearly supposed to go in the order of driving up, walking to the horse, putting on the saddle, then riding. Chase decided to screw with Foreman out of boredom. He arranged them so the girl was walking, riding, tacking, then driving. "Here." He handed them back to Foreman.

"What is the story behind these?" He asked, a little worried Chase had gotten them completely out of order but willing to give his colleague the benefit of the doubt.

"She walking up to the horse to meet him, I'm assuming a gelding because she is young and probably inexperienced. Then she takes him back to the barn where the stable hands tack him up for her while she puts on her pretty dressage coat and hat that mummy and daddy paid through the nose for because she wanted to ride white pony's like in the cartoons. Then she rides out on him and realizes that it isn't nearly as fun as heroines make it look and is a lot more work so she falls off. I'm reading that part into the story because there is no card for that. After she falls, she is angry and snatches off her saddle, which mummy and daddy probably paid for as well because Mitzy couldn't ride a school saddle. Then Mum picks her up and they are driving away while the horse has a self-satisfied horsey laugh at her." Chase had to stop twice during his story to cough.

"'Kay. What's dressage?" Foreman removed the cards, not sure how to note this part of the test.

"Philistine," Chase commented, "it's riding technique where you guide a horse through a sequence of predetermined maneuvers, while showing as little movement as possible on the part of the rider."

"Snob." Foreman shot back good naturedly. It wasn't often Chase let his upper class roots show, but anything dealing with horses or yachting was a dead give away. Foreman hadn't even seen a horse in person unless a policeman was riding it until he was well into his 20s. "Do you ride horses?"

"Not for a while. My horse lives with my grandparents and I haven't seen her for 5 or 6 years." Chase changed the subject back to the tests. He was starting to get really dizzy and queasy again and wanted Foreman gone before he fainted or something equally unpleasant. "That isn't really a fair test, you know. You can put the cards in any order and come up with a story to suit them."

"Next test. I'm going to ask you a series of math problems. I want you to give me the answers." Chase gave Foreman the thumbs up, coughing too hard to actually speak. "10 – 6?"

"4"

"3+5"

"8"

"5x5"

"25"

"20/5"

"4, and to save time, the last five answers are 36, 15, 9, 11, and 7. And the answer to the ultimate question is 42." Foreman stared at him confusedly. "Not a fan of science fiction, I see." Foreman looked peeved but pleased at the same time. "Give me something harder, I've given that same test to people in this same room hundreds of times. You don't think I have memorized the answers?" Chased coughed a few more times.

"So long term memory is ok. What is a nine letter word for iodine defiance in children?" Foreman thought to give his fellow duckling something hard to answer.

"Cretinism," Chase answered.

"Why should that remind you of something?" The elder doctor asked as he produced two pens and two sheets of paper.

"It was in a crossword I was working on before we worked on that lacrosse player, Dan."

"Very good. I couldn't remember which case it was. I thought it was the organophosphate kids." Foreman smiled at Chase. The Aussie was starting to look pretty tired and was coughing quite a bit.

"No, I was doing cryptograms that day but they are too easy."

"I always thought they were harder than crossword puzzles." Foreman suggested.

"No, cryptograms are easy because they are just pattern recognition." Chase answered, unconsciously rubbing the bridge of his nose, trying to massage away his headache.

"Ok, draw what I draw." Foreman drew a series of interconnecting circles, then interconnecting triangles, and finally two parallel squares. Chase mimicked them perfectly then turned the circles into a grinning bumble bee, the triangles into an angry centipede, and the squares into a sideways bottle of Vicodin. Not his best work because his vision was getting blurry again, but still not bad. Foreman looked at him and scowled as he then finished off by perfectly forging Foreman's signature like the one the eldest duckling was scribbling on his chart.

"Are we done now?" He coughed badly as he handed the sheet to Foreman. Even though there was only one light turned on in the room, it was hurting his eyes to keep them open and he was getting very sleepy.

"Yeah, we're done. You're fine."

"And if you would ever loosen up, you might be pretty cute too." Chase snarked at him innocently.

Foreman heard Chase start hacking even worse and looked over at him. "Did the respiratory specialist give you anything for that cough?"

"Sure." Chase motioned to an inhaler of Albuterol sitting on the other side table. Foreman handed it to him with a glass of water, both of which he refused; the water, because, he felt nauseous and the asthma meds out of pride. "I don't need it." He coughed again, lessening the reality of the statement.

"Just take it." Foreman grabbed Chase's hand and put the small blue nozzle in it, completely exasperated. The Aussie still refused. "For the love of God, take the stupid medication. If for no other reason, then the rest of the ward doesn't want to listen to you hack up a lung." Chase did nothing and Foreman glared almost menacingly at him, trying to hide his concern. He would hate to have to break in a new coworker. The blonde finally capitulated and inhaled the medication. It hit the back of his throat with a bitter, metallic twang and made him cough even more for a moment. But then he felt the tightness in his chest ease and his breaths came more easily. "See, that wasn't so bad. Now get some sleep." Foreman moved the table Chase had been draped across and lowered his fellow duckling's bed. He shut off the light and headed to check on the rest of their patients.

As soon as Foreman left, Chase rolled over on to his side and curled up into a small ball. His head was pounding so much it made him feel like he wanted to hurl. The pain was almost unbearable and it was steeling away his ability to relax and sleep. It might not have been so bad if he had just told Foreman to come back later or had stopped in the middle of the test when the pain started getting excruciating. But he couldn't bring himself to admit to it in front of another duckling or anyone else. It was too ingrained in him to hide things away from other people. So he had done his best to be his usual self to Foreman even though he felt awful.

His neck was complaining, so he tried to move into a more comfortable position. It spiked pain through is head, making him feel bile rise in the back of his throat. He swallowed thickly, trying to fend off the urge to vomit even though he really wanted to. He had no desire to bother the nurses over something like that. After all, he had to work with these people and it would just be too embarrassing. So instead she stayed curled up with his head under the covers, counting backwards from 100 every few minutes until he finally fell asleep.

Back in the diagnostics office, House tossed his ball back and forth over his desk to Wilson. They talked about nothing of consequence, just relaxing and shooting the shit. They both needed to detox after the last few days. Wilson had been worried about House. House had been stressed about the outbreak and then more worried than he cared to admit about Chase. Now that things were getting back to normal they both just wanted something mindless to do.

Unfortunately, Foreman spoiled their fun. Cameron was in the clinic so they had been alone until the eldest duckling walked into the room without even knocking. Though to be fair, what is the point of knocking on glass doors; it isn't like the person behind it doesn't see you. House missed the ball as Wilson tossed it to him and it rolled behind his chair. Wilson immediately rose to fetch it for the older doctor. Foreman thought it was sad.

"So, how is wombat doing? Can he still wiggle his toes and recite his alphabet, even the silent letter and made up letters?"

"Silent letters?" Wilson questioned as he handed the ball back to House.

"The letter 'R' doesn't exist in Chase's repertoire. You never noticed that you don't drive a 'car' but a 'cah'. Then there is that imaginary vowel that falls somewhere between 'a' and 'e' and apparently can only be uttered directly through the sinuses." House pointed out. When Chase had started working for him, House had taken great delight in making the Aussie recite the alphabet to remind him that the letter 'R' existed. After a few weeks, House had noticed that Chase made an effort to suppress his accent at work and to not use any Aussie-ism like 'mate' or 'reckon.' At the time, he had thought it was interesting but hadn't given it much thought beyond Chase being tired of getting picked on. But now he realized that Chase had been willfully suppressing himself to try and fit in more and make House happy.

"At least he has gotten better about inflecting up at the end of every sentence like he is asking a question." Wilson pointed out.

"Are you two interested in the results or do you just want to sit around and pick apart the linguistic differences between Australia and the US?" Foreman snapped. He loved Wilson, it was hard not to. He respected House, even if he didn't technically like him. But when you got the two together, they tended to go slightly retarded. It drove him crazy, the constant bantering back and forth and saying nothing. What the hell was the point!

"Wow, someone got up on the wrong side of the drug rep this morning?" House scolded as he held his hand out for Chase's file. He then put it immediately on his desk. Foreman's writing was so bad even he couldn't decipher it half the time. "So what did you find?"

"I doubt there are going to be any permanent neurological problems. Reflexes are all good. His eyes still aren't tracking right but that is probably still from the lingering infection and I think he still has a pretty wicked headache but other than that he seems to be on the mend."

"Anything else?"

"He's annoying." Foreman answered. Chase knew the point of the tests, so why couldn't he just take them and get it over with excluding all the needless sarcasm and yanking of Foreman's chain.

"Why?" Wilson asked. He couldn't quite understand the persistent animosity between Chase and Foreman. He respected Foreman, it was difficult not to but he liked Chase. The Aussie could be really funny and was a good break from House every now and again. He and Chase often met in the park to run together on Saturdays and the blonde never complained about being asked to dog sit if he couldn't take his dog with him somewhere.

Foreman explained the results of the tests and even showed the picture Chase drew with the interconnecting shapes. House couldn't hide a grin at the Vicodin bottle. "I'm going to put this on the ice box." House said, admiring the drawing like a proud father. "So he seems better than OK. He seems back to his normal self, which probably means he is about to drop dead." House commented. "I'll check on him myself later." House commented and shooed Foreman out.

Chase was pretty much left alone for the next three hours. Cameron came by twice that he noticed, but he acted like he was asleep so he didn't have to deal with her. He knew it was rude but did it anyway. He wasn't in the mood for company. He hadn't realized how uncomfortable hospital beds where, how often ICU staff came in to bother the patients, and how hard it was to stay polite with a blinding headache. He wanted to go home, not eat his own food, throw up in his own trash can, and curl up in his own bed, under his own sheets, and sleep until this retched pain went away.

Around lunch time, House came strolling, or as much as he can stroll, into Chase's room with Wilson following him. In his good hand, the elder doctor carried a telephone from one of the conference rooms. He placed it on the table and plugged it in, just out of Chase's reach. The Aussie pushed him self up slightly and watched House quizzically.

"Hello, sleepy head." House said sweetly. Chase allowed his eyes to slide to the side table, where his book of fairy tales and rosary beads still rested. House looked slightly guilty.

"You sent Foreman to break into my flat." Chase accused.

"Don't be ridiculous. Wilson and I did it." Chase looked over at Wilson, who shifted his eyes away from meeting Chase's glare.

"Uh, you have a nice place, very open." Wilson commented and coughed. Chase continued to pout.

"Oh stop being such a whiner. I'm always having you and Foreman break into other people's homes. Why should you be any different?" House snapped to offset the feeling that he had been in the wrong to invade Chase's privacy. "Anyway, how are you feeling?"

"Fine." Chase mumbled. Sitting up had been a really bad idea. He rolled over and tried to curl back up, hoping House would leave and let him go back to sleep.

"Good. I have someone for you to talk to." House raised the top of Chase's bed up so that he could recline against it, and then started to dial a very long phone number. Chase had a sinking feeling in his gut but said nothing.

Several rings sounded and Chase could tell by the sound of them that it was not a US call. He was caught somewhere between wanting to throw up and wanting to deck House. Maybe he should just throw up on House. Chase mentally figured the 14 hour time difference and realized that it was about 4:30 in the morning back home in Melbourne.

"Hello." After five rings a sleepy, raspy voice answered. If Chase had been able to flee he would have run out of the room.

"Hello, Rowan." House said. "Thought I would try you at home this time, easier than sitting through phone menus."

"What do you want, House?" Rowan, now fully awake, sounded like he could frost metal with the freeze in his tone.

"I told you I'd call you if Chase junior died." He paused, hoping Rowan would make some emotional declaration of love to his only son but alas there was none.

"He didn't." Rowan stated matter of factly. "You would sound a great deal more down trodden or drunk if you had failed to cure him. So I'll take a leap and assume he is alive and kicking, probably even sitting in the room with you right now, along with your ever present side kick, Dr. Wilson." For once, it was House grinding his teeth. Ok, maybe now he understood why Chase always looked like he had a headache whenever someone mentioned his father. Stupid know-it-all doctor trying to make everyone else feel inferior!

"Hello, Rowan." Wilson said, somewhat embarrassed. He was not House's "side kick."

"Why exactly did you feel you needed to wake me up in the middle of the night, when a simple e-mail or phone message would have sufficed?" Rowan asked coldly. House looked over at his Chase and noticed he now had his arms wrapped around his knees and his head resting on them.

"I don't know, we thought we would be nice and let you talk to your son, since he almost died and everything." House snapped. This was really not going how he had hoped. One day, maybe, he would learn to keep his nose out of this particular relationship. All others were fair game though.

"Well, Robert. What do you have to say for yourself? What happened?"

"I got sick. I'm better now." Robert gave the shorted possible version of the story in between coughs.

"How?" Rowan sounded almost bored.

"I was infected with a virus. It multiplied. My immune system kicked in and produced antibodies against it. It's been nice talking to you. We'll chat again in another two years or when I feel like beating my head against a brick wall." Chase replied rather sarcastically. House hadn't been expecting Chase to take this so well. He had assumed that Chase would get all weepy and whiney, but he just seemed more annoyed than anything.

The elder Chase completely ignored the sarcasm and the brush off, much like he seemed to disregard everything his son said. "So tell me how exactly, you managed to contract a disease that exists solely in mosquitoes that live in billabongs?" Rowan asked, sounding rather blasé. House was slightly amused that Rowan at least cared enough to research the illness. Being in Australia he would have almost no cause to have ever seen Eastern Equine Encephalitis.

"I stuck my finger with a needle and was infected." Robert answered, embarrassed.

"And you didn't think to tell your superiors what had happened so that you could take the proper measures?" House could just imagine Rowan saying this while standing up, hands in pockets, looking down at his son.

"There was a code just after it happened and I forgot about it. I was distracted." Chase tried to make excuses in between coughs. He had closed his eyes for a moment and his forehead was wrinkled in pain.

Rowan sighed. "Robert, I am very disappointed in you. You should know better than that. It was a shameful disregard for procedure. Suppose that the disease had been something you could spread to others. Your wanton ignoring of what should have been done could have cost lives. Hospitals do not pay doctors to endanger the lives of patients, Dr. Chase. You are employed to help them." The lecture continued and Chase closed his eyes so he didn't have to look at the other two doctors. House thought the speech sounded like something a supervisor would administer to an underling. There was no warmth, compassion, or even familiarity in it. Nor, could he believe that Rowan had addressed his son by his title. He guessed that there was probably love buried somewhere under the sterile manner but he couldn't hear it. He wondered if Robert could. But then again, he had heard Robert be just as frigid when trying to push people away, usually Cameron or himself.

House looked at Wilson and the oncologist stood uncomfortably leaning against the door. He hadn't been happy with this scheme from the inception and was now even more disgruntled with it, as Robert tried to defend himself.

"I didn't know I was sick. I thought I was just really tired and had a migraine. If I had known I was ill I would have gone home." He seemed to plead to be believed. A thought struck House, if he had let his duckling go home when he had asked, Chase probably would not have survived. Without the drugs to keep his fever down and help his breathing, quite probably would have gone to sleep and never woken back up – chilling.

"Or you were just in some ridiculous pissing contest with Dr. Foreman, trying to prove who could work longer? I'm happy he is working with you. Dr. Foreman is a good doctor and you can learn from him."

Robert bit his lip and snapped. "Then maybe you should have trolled the ghettos of Los Angeles for a mother for your prodigal son rather than the ballet houses of Heidelberg. Though I don't think she's Baptist not Catholic." House was shocked to see Chase standing up for himself, especially against someone whose opinion mattered so much to him.

"Why do you always bring that woman up?" He sighed.

"Because she is the only thing we still have in common."

"Robert, this childish petulance is neither productive nor professional." Rowan scolded.

"I'm sorry, sir, I'll get my stethoscope and lab coat and we can talk about lupus and churg-strauss. I wasn't aware I was supposed to maintain a professional demeanor, while I am talking to my own father." Wilson slowly tried to sneak out of the room but House grabbed him and wouldn't let him leave, thoroughly enjoying the display.

"When was the last time you went to church?" Rowan asked, now that the worry had worn off he was angry with his son and trying to hurt him. He realized he was being a coldhearted ass but was too old to change. Besides if his son hated him maybe his death would be easier.

"When was the last time you visited your wife's grave?" Chase the younger countered. House sank into a chair, feeling guilty at the pleasure he was deriving from listening to the two fight. There was almost a certain beauty to listening to razor sharp insults being thinly veiled in polite indifference. But then Rowan seemed to wise up to the show they were putting on and snapped something in a language that House didn't understand. He guessed it was Czech. Chase answered in kind though more slowly. It was tough to gage anger and sarcasm in another language but they both still sounded pissed.

At one point, Rowan said something that made Robert's eyes fill with tears and House would have paid good money to know what was said. But finally the elder Dr. Chase switched back to English and said. "It's very late and I am going back to bed. When you wish to contact me again, I would appreciate that you do so at the office. That goes for you as well, Dr. House."

"Don't worry, IF I contact you again it will be through email." Chase answered and the line went dead. Chase buried his face in his knees, hiding it from the other two doctors. Wilson looked on sympathetically for a moment before moving to the bed and placing a reassuring hand on Chase's back. Chase stiffened at the touch and Wilson pulled away. After a moment he lifted his head up slowly, still clearly in a lot of physical pain and spoke quietly. There were tears in his eyes. "My head kind of hurts. Do you mind if I go to sleep?" He sounded like his normal docile self. Not the rude, snippy brat, who had just gotten off the phone.

"Sure, Chase, get some rest. If you need anything, just call." Wilson smiled at him, feeling awful that they had just put him through a sparing match with his old man when he was clearly not up to it.

"I'll be back." House told him and followed Wilson out. Once they were out of earshot he turned to the oncologist. "Wow, that was more exciting than I had hoped, almost as much fun as motor cross."

"Yeah, right." Wilson looked at him skeptically. He knew damn well that House was using jokes to cover up the fact he felt like shit for inflicting that on his sick duckling. "Almost as much fun as a trip to the dentist." He continued to follow the elder doctor to the pharmacy.

Back in the room, Chase ducked his head under the covers, trying to keep his breathing steady until House and Wilson were gone. Once he was sure he was alone, he bit his lip and allowed the tears to fall from his eyes. Damn his father! Damn him to hell! If any other father had heard that their son was as ill as Robert had been, they would have been concerned maybe they would have even come to see their child. But not Rowan, no, Rowan just lectured. That bastard had actually sat their and lectured his own son like an underling without even saying 'hello.'

He felt a tear drip from under his closed lid and slide down his nose, only to dangle on the tip before dropping onto the pillowcase. He wished he could work up the energy to hate his father but he was too tired. He used to hate him, years ago, and he also used to love him. He guessed he still did, loved and hated him, but not to the same degree. He was just worn down and exhausted by the whole thing. He was tired of fighting, tired of being angry, tired of bowing and scrapping for attention then being ignored anyway, tired of trying not to care when it hurt so badly, he was just plan worn out. He couldn't understand why once, just once, the great Dr. Rowan Chase couldn't stop being a doctor and be a father. Chase hated to admit it, even to himself, but all he wanted was for once his father to say that he loved him. So that Chase would know that he was at least as important as Rowan's patients or his research.

The Aussie had almost heard it, when Rowan had been in New Jersey and told his son that the he had missed him. Robert had felt something constrict in his chest then. It was too close to what he had always longed for. Believing it would have made him too happy so he distrusted it. He was too afraid to believe his father because he might get hurt. It was a lot less painful not to hope. He used to hope, when he was much younger. Every few months Rowan would show up, driven by Catholic guilt, and take Robert out to a Cricket match or a Football match. Seeing Rowan would get his son's hopes up that maybe his father would stick around. But always Rowan would drop him off in front of his mother's house with a promise that they would do something after Church on Sunday. Robert would sit in his room and wait for hours on Sunday and Rowan wouldn't come. It would be months before he saw his father again. Robert would stupidly always be hopeful again when he came back. After his mother died, something inside of Robert had broken irreparably and he hadn't been able to hope again after that.

He wished that he could convince himself that it was Rowan who had missed out by not being around him but he couldn't. It had always been painfully obvious that Rowan hadn't needed his son as much as Robert had needed his father. Chase felt like someone was tearing his chest apart from the strain of not screaming. He was mad at his father for hurting him and mad at House for interfering in his personal life again, but most of all he was mad at himself for still being hurt by something that he should have out grown. He coughed into his hands and left them over his face, trying not to cry. He knew with a sickening certainty he would call his father back and apologize, even though Rowan didn't deserve it.

Fifteen minutes later, House came limping back in and Chase almost groaned. He wanted to be left alone, damn it! Crying had been a really bad idea because it made his head hurt even more and he was pretty sure he was going to throw up from it. He tried to pretend he was asleep but House wasn't as easily fooled as Cameron. "I know you aren't asleep." The elder doctor accused.

Chase hastily wiped his face, trying to obliterate any sign of tears before he finally peeped his head out from under the covers where it was warm. The only real complaint he ever had about working in the ICU, was that it was always kept way too cold. He watched House fish two needles from his pocket and uncap one with his teeth. The Aussie reached over and pulled the IV line out of House's grip. "What are those?" He asked.

"They are for your head." House answered around the cap in his teeth.

"What are they?" He refused to relinquish the line back to House until he knew what the elder doctor was giving him.

"Hydromorphone for the pain and orphenadrine to help keep your muscles relaxed. It'll help with your chest and prevent muscle strain from not being able to move your head around." He grabbed the plastic tube back from Chase.

"I know what they are for." He snapped. "I don't want them." He added petulantly.

"Too bad, you're getting them." House stuck the first needle into the injection site of tube and pushed in the liquid. Chase glared at him. House could easily see the red, puffy eyes and tear tracks on the younger doctor's face even though the Aussie had tried to wipe them away. Maybe he had made a slight miscalculation in contacting the Czech Chase.

"Do you ever listen to what other people say to you?" He asked, contemplating clawing out his IV to prevent the drugs from hitting his system but then he felt the slight burn that told him they were already present. He cursed internally. He hated taking pain meds. It just seemed like a cop out to him. He was liberal with their use on his patients and never begrudged House his Vicodin, well almost never, but he just wouldn't use them on himself. It was too easy to try and use them on things other than physical pain and sometimes pain was like a sort of penance.

"Not usually." He injected the muscle relaxant into the tube and watched Chase try to glare at him while the drugs took effect. It only took about four minutes before his duckling was out cold. After Chase was fast asleep his looked down at the Aussie and wiped away the last of the tears that Chase had missed. He felt awful that he had forced his duckling into dealing with his father again. He had just been so sure that it would help this time.

Keeping the secret of Rowan's illness was much harder than he thought it would be, partially because he was a gossip and liked to talk about people and partially because he had been very angry at Chase and wanted to punish him. However, it was mostly because he didn't want to think about how devastated Chase was going to be when Rowan finally died. He couldn't imagine how bad the feeling of betrayal would be, when Chase found out that Rowan had been sick for months but never told his own son. And he had to admit that he was more than a little worried that Chase would never forgive him for not coming clean. He was slightly afraid that after Chase senior was no more, there would be no reason for Chase junior to stay on this side of the globe to finish his fellowship. He had voiced this to Wilson and the oncologist had politely pointed out that Chase might want to stay if House weren't such a bastard to him. House had thrown Skittles at his friend for that. But maybe Wilson was right. Maybe the Aussie needed a friend for a little while, not that he was volunteering. Maybe Wilson would do it.

Since there was no one else around, House stroked Chase's hair off his forehead. It was a very paternal gesture and it felt good, not that he would ever admit it. The only reason he had allowed himself the luxury was that he knew Chase wasn't likely to wake up. After a few pets, his guilt was assuaged and he summoned the nurses to move Chase to a more private room. He didn't think there was any reason for his duckling to still be in the ICU so he was having him moved closer to his own office. Now was as good a time as any because Chase wasn't likely to wake up. He limped back to his office, and called Wilson, it was time for lunch.

About seven hours later, House limped into Chase's room. He had been dozing in his chair since he and Wilson had returned from lunch. When he arrived, he saw Cameron handing a fuzzy, white bear to her fellow duckling. He put it beside a large stuffed panda that had been a gift from Cuddy. Cameron was fawning and mothering him and House could see the look of sheer misery on the Aussie's face. He walked in without knocking and took Chase's dinner, a bowl of homemade chicken soup courtesy of Dr. Gardner. She was a great cook and always bringing Chase left over, which House loved stealing.

"Cameron, go home." He motioned for her to leave. She gave him her cute, pouty, annoyed face but left.

Chase smiled at her and waved goodbye, saying a silent prayer of thanks that she was gone. He appreciated her concern but he was about to strangle her if she didn't stop trying to take care of him. She had already brought him flowers, a stuffed bear, cookies, crossword puzzles (American ones rather than the English or Aussie ones he did, which was bad because Americans don't know how to spell), and tea bags (those he would enjoy later) and he hadn't been awake for even a day. He didn't even want to think what she would be like if she found out that the needle prick had been her fault.

"She really needs to have children." House commented as he looked around the room.

"I'm sure she would be more than happy if you were to volunteer for the task of siring them." Chase commented as he sank down into his bed. This bed was slightly better than the ICU ones but not much. He was dizzy and queasy from sitting up too long and the pain meds were all but gone now making his head pound mercilessly.

"True, but I'm not suicidal. I would much rather be smothered to death by breasts than by kindness." He raised his eye brows and Chase gave him an indulgent smile. "So, did she offer to move in and take care of you? Your place could use a woman's touch."

"I think you interrupted her before she could and there is nothing wrong with my flat." Chase closed his eyes, hoping House would take the hint and leave.

"Your apartment," House stressed the word, "looks like a train station." Chase ignored him. "Aren't you going to eat your dinner, its damn good?" House put the Tupperware container of soup back on the table in front of Chase. His duckling turned a bit green looking at it.

"Maybe later."

"Maybe now." House handed him a spoon and sat down in the comfy chair beside the bed. He reached over and turned the TV on to watch the OC, ignoring the way the flickering lights made Chase squint.

"I'm not hungry." Chase tried to push the table away but House stopped it with his cane. He was nauseous, in pain, and grumpy. He wanted to be left alone. He felt awful and was tired of people poking at him, testing him, and generally bothering him. He just wanted to sleep. No wonder patients were so pissy all the time.

"I'm sorry. I don't recall _asking_ if you were hungry. I think I _told_ you to eat." House didn't even turn around from the TV while he talked. In the commercial he finally looked over and noticed Chase was stirring the soup quite a bit but not actually swallowing any of it. House guessed he should probably get the nurse to bring him some anti-nausea meds so Chase could eat. He was about to press the button to summon her, when the Aussie finally spooned some in his mouth, annoyed by House's scrutiny. "See, that's not so bad." House turned back to his show but kept count of how many spoonfuls his Aussie ate. He would be happy as long as Chase at five.

The blonde ate 6 spoonfuls but no noodles before pushing the table away to lie down. "There I ate. Can I go to sleep now?" He really felt like he was about to be sick and wanted to lie down until the dizzy, ill feeling passed.

"Good, puppy." House told him and took the soup for himself. Once Chase's eyes were closed, he helped himself to the cookies Cameron had brought as well. He hoped they were as good as the ones Cassie had sent. He and Wilson had split those.

House remained in the room, foot propped up, munching on cookies for the next half hour. The OC was over half way through and starting to get pretty interesting when Chase pushed himself back up. House watched him critically, realizing what was about to happen, he handed Chase the ugly pink, plastic basin from his bedside table. His duckling sat hanging over the basin for nearly a minute, drooling then unceremoniously emptied his gut into it. House watched, mentally cursing himself for not dosing Chase with anti emetics earlier. All the other patients had moderate to severe nausea and vomiting, why would Chase be different. He was different because he hadn't complained. He hadn't said that he wanted anything for it or even that he felt sick.

After nearly two minutes of hacking and retching, House lowered the bed rail and sat down facing Chase. He attempted to get the Aussie to lie down on his side because he wasn't doing much more than dry heaving. Chase fought him but eventually relented and rolled over onto his side, one hand holding his stomach and the other steadying the basin. House rubbed soothing circles on the young man's back, while pressing the button to summon the nurse. When she finally arrived he looked at Chase as he spoke. "25 ml of promethazine." Chase slowly and painfully nodded his head yes. Right now he would have ballet danced en pointe for the devil if it meant that this horrible retching would stop.

When the nurse returned, House quickly weighed the options. He knew he should inject it into the IV bag and let it drip at no more 10 ml per minutes but that meant that Chase would have to wait much longer for it to take effect. So instead, he jabbed the needle straight into the Aussie's deltoid muscle and injected the mediation intramuscularly. Chase barely flinched and House sat back down beside the Aussie. The blonde was curled around his stomach with his hand covering his eyes. "That should make you feel better pretty quick." He soothed as he pushed slightly sweaty hair out of his duckling's face. Chase gave him a slight smile but other than that didn't move. "Are there any other symptoms that you would like to tell me about?" Chase gave his head a minute shake to signal 'no.' His head was pounding worse than ever now and it was making him really nauseous again. It hurt so much he almost asked House for more painkillers but didn't bother because he knew the anti-emetic the elder doctor gave him would put him to sleep. He swallowed a few times trying to stop himself from retching again, with little success. Strangely, House remained beside him holding the basin and patting his back until he finally drifted off to sleep.

As Chase was drifting off, he was reminded of when he had been six years old and had been ill. He had had his tonsils taken out, like many children, but he had had a bad reaction to the anesthetic that had made him very ill for hours. His father had stayed with him then, petting his hair, reading to him, and holding him. He knew that had been 20 plus years ago but part of him still thought that if he looked up, he would see his father sitting beside him. Which, only made the kick in the gut worse, when he finally looked up and didn't see him. The only people he had to take care of him now were hospital staff. He closed his eyes before he could get too depressed over that thought.

As soon as he was sure Chase would stay asleep, House limped from the room over to Wilson's office. Much as he expected, the head of oncology was still sitting at his desk, doing paper work. House barged in without knocking. Wilson didn't look up until House started talking. He had gotten used to House's rather rude entrances and exits. Sometimes House came to him to talk, sometimes just for silent company. He always let the elder man set the pace. It was just easier that way.

"Chase is throwing up." House said by way of a conversation opener.

"Not surprising, nausea is one of the most common symptoms of encephalitis. Give him from Phenergan or Zofran and light meals. Next thing you are going to tell me is that he is lethargic and has a headache." Wilson suggested.

"I did. But he is miserable and a lot sicker than he is letting on." House took a stackable magnet game of off the desk and started playing with it.

"Then if you know that, what is the problem? Treat him for what you know he has rather than what he says is wrong with him. I should not be having to tell this to you, of all people. If you can't be objective about his case because you are too close, then step away and let another doctor handle it." Wilson scolded.

"I can be objective. I just don't want to brow beat him into anything he doesn't want because," House trailed off.

"Because, you respect him?" Wilson teased.

"He's a doctor. He was treating the other patients. He knows there is really nothing we can do for him other than make him comfortable and let his body fight the virus on its own."

Wilson leaned back and smiled at his friend, enjoying the uncharacteristic streak of conscience. "You just don't like seeing him sick because it makes you want to hold his hand and make him feel better."

"I do not." House protested, glad that Wilson didn't know that was precisely what he had been doing.

"Yes you do. You can't stand to see people you care about get hurt. I still remember what you were like when I had those kidney stones two years ago. You were worse than my Jewish mother." That was the one thing most people never realized about House, that he cared far more about Wilson than himself. Had Vogler figured out all he had to do to control House was threaten Wilson, life would have been much different now.

"I am so not worse than your hovering smother. I just happen to know how dangerous kidney stones can be." House sounded waspish, defending himself.

"About as dangerous as a root canal. Face it, bro, it's pissing you off that he feels like shit and there is nothing you can do about it. Face it and move on."

They were silent for a moment, while House manipulated the magnets and metal rods into the shape of a stick figure playing with himself. "How do you deal with it? I mean being so close to patients that are suffering all the time. They're such a downer. You have to more masochistic than Chase to put up with that."

"Maybe, I am friends with you." Wilson smile at him, taking years and worries off his face. "I try not too get too attached. But if I do, I drink a lot, I womanize, and I do penance by letting you verbally abuse me."

"Lovely. So I should get drunk, get laid, and say scathing things to myself?"

"No, but a drink would probably help." Wilson produced a bottle of cognac and two glasses out of his desk drawer, pouring two fingers for each of them. Wilson drank a lot; it was just a fact of being around Wilson. He rarely drank to point of drunkenness, but he would enjoy a drink after work nearly every night. "How do you think Chase is actually doing?"

"I think he is on the mend but still in excruciating pain. He can't sit up for very long without being sick and looks like his is being tortured if you shine a pen light in his eyes. He'll live but he is going to need someone to take care of him for awhile when he gets home. I can reasonably keep him here for maybe another two days but after that he'll be on his own and he really shouldn't be."

"Maybe Cameron can stay with him?" Wilson suggested

"I suspect he would throw himself out of the window if she tried."

"Hasn't he ever mentioned any friends in the area or maybe any family members other than daddy dearest?" Wilson questioned.

"No, in fact, he never even mentioned Rowan, I'm the one who brought him up first."

"Don't worry; you can cross that bridge in two days when you release him. After all, you can always stay with him and take care of him." Wilson smiled evilly.

"Oh no, Jimmy, I would never spend the night with someone other than you. You are the one, who is always cheating on me with that wife of yours." House taunted. Wilson laughed and the two spend the next half hour drinking and relaxing.

Wilson left at 9pm and House went back to Chase's room. He knew he should probably go home, but he wanted to be close by. So he had the nurse get him some Ensure, chocolate because Chase liked chocolate, and sat down to play his game. Chase hadn't moved since he had left, but that wasn't surprising. Promethazine, or as it was usually called Phenergan, was a powerful antihistamine and in large doses was used as an anti-emetic. It had three common side effects, dry mouth, dizziness, and practically inducing a chemical coma, though the manufacturers called it a 'light sleep'. He guessed he could roll Chase off the roof of the hospital and the duckling wouldn't wake up.

However, he needed the Aussie to wake up now. House guessed, in his expertly educated medical opinion, that part of the reason Chase was so nauseous was that he hadn't eaten anything in nearly four days. All that time, his duckling's digestive system had still been producing acid and bile irritating the lining of his stomach. Chase had to start eating and drinking very small meals to get his stomach used to accepting food again and heal what was probably a pretty uncomfortable case of gastritis.

So, he shook Chase to wake him and make him drink a few sips of his nasty tasting Ensure. It took three shakes before the blonde opened his eyes and squinted at House. He looked completely stoned. "Drink this." House held a straw to Chase's mouth. Chase ignored it and tried to go back to sleep. House yanked the hair on his temple and forced the straw between his lips. "Drink! Just a sip or two for now." Chase closed his eyes and didn't drink. House peeled the younger man's right eyelid open and said, "I'm not letting you go back to sleep until you do." The Aussie relented and took a small sip. House let go of him and he fell almost immediately back to sleep.

They repeated this scene every hour for the next five hours. It was getting easier to wake Chase up, but he was more reluctant to drink because the anti emetic was wearing off. House wondered if he should dose him with more when he looked up from his game boy as he heard a ruckus outside at the nurses' station. He slowly rose and hobbled towards the door. He wouldn't normally care but something about the Commonwealth voice being raised in indignation sounded familiar. He peeked his head out of the door to see a nurse trying to dissuade a woman who was intent on getting to the rooms beyond. House enjoyed the show, he didn't like the nurse on duty, she was rude and told him to keep his TV turned down and always turned him in if he hid in on of the beds on her floor. He was glad she had to deal with an indignant relative.

Just as he was about to go back to his seat at the end of Chase's bed and enjoy his game of Super Mario Brothers, he heard something that made him limp out into the hallway. "Damnit woman! Do you know who I am? I can buy and sell this bloody hospital. Now take me to Robert Chase's room before I have you fired!" She was almost screaming now. House was somewhat amazed that such a relatively small woman could make so much noise.

"Don't worry about it Dorris." House placated, recognizing the woman from Chase's pictures. The big Roman nose was a dead give away even though she wore a Sydney Swans cap and had her long brown hair braided in two pig tails.

"Deloris." The over worked and extremely irritated nurse corrected. "Visiting hours are over. Come back tomorrow."

"Come on." House motioned for the woman to follow him, completely ignoring the nurse. "You must be Cassandra." He turned to look at her, when they were outside of Chase's door. He supposed she was pretty even if she looked tired. She had dark brown hair with unnatural light highlights. Olive skin and a brown eyes. She was dressed in yoga chic clothes that were awfully tight, not that he minded because she had a very athletic body but her hips were perhaps a bit wide for the proportion of the rest of her. She certainly didn't look like the type of woman Chase would date.

"And you must be Dr. House." She stared back levelly at him. She had spent a life time around Dr. Chase senior and obnoxious agents, manager, producers, and directors. She was not easily intimidated, unlike Chase.

"What gave it away?" He asked. He noticed that she looked tired.

"The gimp. How is he?" She asked.

"Better. Mostly out of the woods. He still has a wicked headache and some nausea and vomiting but he is doing much better than he was." He was quite surprised to see her shoulder sag and quickly cross herself. Apparently she shared the same Catholic affliction as Chase.

"Can I see him?" Cass questioned, feeling almost weak from relief but she knew her fears would persist until she actually saw him.

"Yeah, whatever." House told her and led the way into Chase's room, trying to figure out why he felt almost jealous that someone else would be sitting with his duckling. He conceptually knew they all had lives outside of the hospital but, damn it, inside the hospital he was supposed to be the center of their universes.

She hesitated at the door, watching Chase sleep. She thought he looked awful, pale, and thin but she didn't think she had ever been happier to see him. "Robin." She breathed quietly, not wanting to wake him but she wanted to hear his voice, to make sure he was alright.

House seemed to understand her dilemma and intervened. "Chase, wake up." The youngest duckling woke quickly to the sound of House calling his name. After all, House had been waking him up every hour or so to either eat or drink. Then there was also the 18 months of working with the surly doctor and having his name barked at him for whatever reason.

Chase slowly sat up; trying to avoid the searing pain he knew would erupt in his head from being upright. His anti-emetics were starting to wear off and he was getting queasy again. He really hoped House wasn't going to try and make him eat. Once he was mostly sitting up, he squinted towards the bright light in the doorway and his eyes grew wide with shock. "Cass?" He questioned, disbelieving his eyes.

Hearing his voice seemed to wake her from her trance and she literally muscled House out of the way to get to her friend. "Robin." She said as she wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his neck. House watched unabashedly, squirreling away blackmail material for later. He couldn't help but smile though as he noticed that Chase looked like he had opened every Christmas present he had ever received. He would remember to point out to Wilson that even though calling Rowan had been a swing and a miss, calling Cassie had been a home run. After nearly a minute, she pulled away and removed her cap, playfully swatting at his chest with it. "Damn you, for scaring me. You know you aren't allowed to get sick." She told him with tears in her eyes.

Chase pulled her back against him, "I'm sorry. I just really, really wanted a vacation." He smiled down at her, looking happier than he had in months. She pulled away from him and kissed him on the forehead. He looked down at her chest, tilting his head sideways slightly and commented. "Those are new."

"You like them. I just got them a few weeks ago." She thrust her now much larger breast towards him.

"They are very perky." He answered seriously. She smiled and laced her fingers though his, holding his hand tight. "Why are you here?" He questioned. Cass gave him a scowl and he hastily added, "It isn't that I'm not happy to see you, just I thought you were in Europe."

"I was. Dr. House called me and told me you were sick." No other explanation was needed between them. She was the closest thing to a family he had and she thought of him as her brother in all but name. They both knew that had the situation been reversed, he would have defied God himself to get to her just so she wasn't alone. Of course there was the subtle difference that had it been Cass who was ill, she would have had her mother, her father, her grandmother, her cousins, and her elder siblings there as well. But he would be the only one she would probably want to see.

"Why would House have called you?" He asked her but looked at House.

"I was deeply concerned about you and didn't want you to be alone." House feigned, trying to sound kind.

"You went through the call log on my phone, didn't you?" Chase accused.

"It was for your own good. You have a lot of women in your contacts list, you know." House tried to change the subject.

"And you have a lot of porn sites in your favourites folder." Chase shot back. Cass watched, vaguely amused. "You didn't call her because you were trying to find me a friend. You needed something." Chase paused for a moment and watched House shift his weight more to his cane. The elder doctor was in pain and it was late. "You needed her to convince my father to release my medical records, didn't you?" Cassie's giggle was answer enough for him.

"Well the bastard wouldn't do it and we needed to know your history. That you were asthmatic was the key to me figuring out what happened." House defended himself.

"Go home House." Chase told him. The older doctor didn't move though. "Go on. I'll be fine now. And thank you." He said in a softer voice.

"Fine. I'll tell the nurse to have meds ready for you if you want them. I'll see you tomorrow." He started to limp out.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Dr. House." Cass called after him, as Chase shifted over to make room for her to lie down beside him. The last thing House heard as he walked away was. "I don't know, I figured he would have been younger looking if Dr. Cameron was so in love with him."

The next morning when House arrived, he dropped his things off in his office then ambled over to Chase's room. The temperature had nose dived last night and it was quite chilly out. His duckling was asleep on his side, drooling on Cameron's teddy bear. He heard the shower being shut off in the bathroom and suspected that Cass was in there. He walked up to the bed and read the chart. It looked like he was given more anti-emetics a few hours ago but no more pain meds. Neither was surprising.

Before House could do much more than finish reading, Cassie emerged from the bathroom, pulling a comb through her wet hair. She had on baggy cargo pants and an oversized fleece pullover, certainly not the normal clothes for a pop star. She looked at him suspiciously. House looked back at her exactly the same way.

"How was he last night?" The doctor finally asked, tired of the staring contest. He wanted to take a look at her new breasts, which was tough to do if he was staring at her face.

"Ok, I guess. He got pretty sick and started throwing up around five this morning. The nurse gave him something for it and he hasn't moved since." She finished combing her hair and put in a long braid down her back. He wandered if it was real.

"Phenergan is a drug for nausea. It causes drowsiness." House looked at the rest of Chase's vitals. They looked normal. He still had a low grade fever and his white count was still high but nothing that was unexpected. If he could hold food down today, then he could go home. "So he fell asleep hugging a stuffed bear?" He pointed to the white bear the blonde had tucked loosely under his arm.

"No. I put it there because it made him look cute." She smiled down at her friend, then looked up at House angrily. "Why did you do it?"

"I couldn't help it. It was only once. I promise it doesn't change the way I feel about you." He answered her ridiculous question in an equally stupid manner.

She seemed unamused. "Why did you make him deal with his father? That bastard isn't worthy of getting the time of day from Robin."

"Could you be more specific? I've actually done it more than once." House tried to side step the question.

"I have been well informed by everyone I've met since setting foot in this hospital that you are an ass but why would you put him through that when he is sick. Why would you ever put him through it? He doesn't deserve it."

"How do you know what he deserves? I don't recall you being here."

"You don't know him. You don't know what he has been through and you don't know what Rowan has done to him, still does to him. You are his boss. You have no right to meddle in his personal life and no right to treat him like a pet."

"And you are a chick with fake tits." House answered her indignation, not wanting to admit that he agreed with her. He wouldn't say he was friends with Chase because that implied too high of a level of commitment. However, Chase was more than just a mere employee.

"And you are a bastard. Now that we have stated the obvious," was as far as she got before the voices woke Chase. He stared blearily at them, taking in the fuzzy images of his boss and best friend, both standing in defensive positions. He had a sinking feeling that they had been fighting about something. One reason he had never introduced Cass to anyone he worked with at PPTH was that she was a typical hot headed Italian and had a tendency to be a little combative.

"Good morning Dr. House." He tried to speak as clearly as he could. He was still groggy and cotton mouthed.

"Chase." House answered. Cass on the other hand went straight to him, sitting beside him on the bed.

"How are you feeling, luv?"

"Better." He coughed. He felt like he was trying to breath through a straw.

House turned to her, and allowed his natural humour to show. "You, go away." He used his thumb to indicate the door.

"Excuse me?" She snapped at him. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Yes you are." He smiled, itching to call security on her.

"Cass, please, Dr. House just needs to examine me and it is common practice to have the patient alone." She looked at him, annoyed. "Why don't you go get something to eat, you must be starving?"

"I ate while you were asleep." He looked up at her with adorable puppy dog eyes and she gave in. "Is there a church near here?"

"Yes, four blocks west then two blocks north." He answered as she removed his rosaries from where House left them as a bookmark. She ran her hand over them sadly noticing the state of tarnish. She would clean them for him.

"Fine, I'll be back in about an hour." She rustled through her large bag and pulled out a set of beads that were a perfect replica of his, only hers were mother of pearl rather than onyx. She kissed his forehead and left, sparing a singular scowl for House.

"She's charming." House commented as he sat down in the now vacated chair. He didn't bother with the doctor's stool, this was more comfortable.

"She doesn't like you." Chase commented, trying to stretch his neck out, immediately regretting it.

"Have you been telling her nasty things about me?"

"No, just the truth."

"I didn't think it would be that bad. No wonder she hates me." House joked. "So why did you send her out of the building, we have a chapel downstairs?"

"A chapel, she wanted a church." Chase commented as he pulled his knees up, trying to work the kinks out of his back.

"What's the difference? Did they teach you in Seminary that god would only listen if you were staring at some scary picture of the Crucifixion?"

"No, nothing like that. She probably wanted to make a donation in the name of a saint or maybe light a candle in thanks. You can't do that in a hospital chapel." Chase shrugged. "It's a Catholic thing."

"I see. So how are you doing this morning?"

"Sort of surprised that Cameron and Foreman haven't come by yet?"

"I told them I discharged you so you could get some peace and quiet."

"You really do have a heart of gold buried under all that evil, don't you?" Chase stared lovingly at his boss for a moment before smiling to let him know it was a joke.

"So other than lonely, are you going to tell me the truth about how you're feeling?" House propped his leg up on the bed.

Chase looked away from his doctor. He was torn between wanting to go home and not wanting to flat out lie. "I was a little sick to my stomach last night but I feel better now."

"How about your head? Still dizzy, still hurt, still seeing double?"

"It still hurts but not as much. I'm still a little dizzy but not really seeing double anymore." Chase paused. "Cass said she would stay with me as long as I wanted her there so when can I go home?"

"Let's see how your blood work looks." His duckling looked truly depressed. "But if things don't look any worse AND you manage to keep down your breakfast, you can leave this evening."

"Thank you."

"So, your friend is hot. She better not over exert you too soon." House was fishing for information. He always had trouble picturing Chase in a long term relationship with anyone. The Aussie just seemed too private and jumpy.

"We are just friends." Chase corrected him.

"Hey, friends can have sex too."

"Is that an offer or brief view into yours and Wilson's relationship?"

"Neither. I'm just saying, being friends does not mean you two aren't doing the horizontal tango, when no one is looking."

"We aren't."

"Well why the hell not?"

"We're friends. I think of her like a sister." Chase knew he couldn't possibly explain his relationship with Cass to House. They had known each other their entire lives and knew all of the other's secrets. But also there was Chase's common Catholic hang ups about sex, having gone to Seminary had only helped to cripple him further. He had always had a problem having sex with people he liked. He had been taught his whole life that sex was dirty and evil so why would he want to inflict something like that on someone he cared about? Just one of the many reasons he tended to stick to one night stands.

"Sucks to be you." House commented as he turned the TV on to the Cartoon Network. "We'll start you off with some water. If that goes well you get your choice of Jell-O or Ensure."

"Jell-O. I don't ever want to look at another Ensure as long as I live." Chase recalled from a few hours ago that they tasted equally as bad coming back up as they did going down.

"Fare enough."

True to his word, House let Chase leave after he managed to go the entire day without vomiting and took a short walk down the hall. He even allowed his duckling to take a brief shower and clean himself up, with the help of a very lucky nurse. He chose Brenda, even though Chase asked for Carol, just because she tended to annoy Foreman as much as she annoyed him. So at 8:30, House signed the papers and his wombat was free to go home with strict instructions to not leave his bed or his couch for at least three day.

The drive to Chase's loft was silent between the two friends. Cass was concentrating on driving an American car on the wrong side of the road and Chase was concentrating on not hurling. They quickly arrived in front of his building and he lurched to his feet and staggered towards the door. Cass had to steady him because he still couldn't walk straight and had a terribly hard time keeping his balance. He opted to take the lift, rather than traversing the 7 flights of stairs to reach the top floor. He had a quick, private chuckle that House had to walk up all those stairs.

He leaned against the wall as he told Cass the numbers to punch in to open the lift. Once inside he rested against the corner, letting the walls hold him up. The movement of the car made him nauseous and dizzy. He was beginning to think leaving the hospital was a bad idea about the same time he started to see blue and white dots dance in sickening patterns in front of his eyes. He felt a cool hand touch his cheek, making him open his eyes.

"You ok? You look really, really pale. You aren't going to pass out or anything, are you?" Cass looked at her best mate. Chase had started looking increasingly worse as they left the hospital. Now he looked like he could barely stand and was so sallow he looked grey.

"I don't think so." He mumbled, not entirely sure of his answer.

Soon the door opened on Chase's loft and he didn't think he had ever been so happy to see somewhere before. Cass helped him stumble in and stopped in front of his couch. "Do you want to rest here while I get the bags?" She asked, worried. He looked really, really bad.

"No. I just want lie down." He almost murmured as he moved towards the steps to his bedroom. The stairs were not easy to manage because they were open and only had wire cables as railings but eventually he made it into his bedroom and stopped at the top of the steps, pressing his face into the side of his wardrobe.

"Come on, luv, we're almost there." Cass encouraged, wanting to get him into bed as fast as possible.

"Wait." He gasped, trying to steady himself enough to move. He felt really nauseous and didn't want to get sick on his floor. He gave up and wobbled as fast as he could into the bathroom and dropped in front of the toilet to be sick. He hated life about now.

Cass stood uncertainly outside of the bathroom, biting her lip. She didn't really want to go in there with him, but didn't want to leave him alone when he was sick either. She was a sympathetic puker and no one but Robin could make her think about staying. After a particularly loud retch, she called to him, "Robin, sweetheart, I'm going to go get the rest of the bags. I'll be right back." She flew down the stairs before he could answer.

Chase ignored her in favour of hanging his head over the toilet. He felt awful and wanted to lie down right where he was and go to sleep. But unfortunately, he had to get into his bed. When he stood up, he nearly fainted so instead he crawled on his hands and knees to his bed and burrowed under the covers. He felt like his head was spinning and was afraid he was going to get sick again.

That was how Cassie found him. She knelt beside him and pushed his hair back. "Are you feeling better?" She asked quietly.

"No." He whimpered. "I hate to do this to you, but can you get me bucket or something. There are some under the sink downstairs."

"Sure, babe, I'll be right back." She patted his hand and scurried off downstairs. She took longer than she needed to, hoping he would get it out of his system before she got back. But eventually she came back up the stairs baring a mop pail. "Here, sorry I took so long."

"That's ok. I feel better now. I think I was just standing for too long." He answered, barely cracking open one of his eyes.

"Good. If you don't need anything else, I'm going to get some sleep. I'm exhausted." She started to pull off her clothes and root through his drawers for a tee shirt to sleep in. "Where can I sleep?" He didn't answer, but pulled the covers down on the other side of the bed. She climbed in beside him and he immediately turned around to curl against her.

He rested his head on her shoulder then fidgeted a few times, pointing at her breast he told her. "I think I like the old ones better. They were more comfortable."

She tugged his hair where she had been petting it. "Go to sleep." And he did, happy to be home.

A day and a half later, House stopped by Wilson's office at 6pm. "Come on, let's go." House turned out his friend's light before he had even gotten out of his chair.

"Go where?" Wilson asked as he rose and followed his friend, shrugging on his coat.

"To Chase's dump. He needs a follow up and you're driving." They were quiet until they got into Wilson's car.

"So all this because Chase needs a follow up?" He already knew the answer.

"Yup."

"Nothing else?" Wilson knew damn well that House wanted to talk to his duckling. He missed having Chase around to beat up on and House really wanted to make sure the Aussie was ok.

"Why would there be anything else?" House was purposely being obtuse.

"Nothing like wanting to talk to him about what a bastard you have been the last few months? Or explaining to him why you keep trying to shove him and his father together?" Wilson raised his eyebrows.

"Nothing like that. Just want to make sure he will be sound to return to work soon."

"Clearly." Wilson intoned, making it obvious he didn't believe his friend one bit.

Soon they arrived at the loft, taking the lift this time, courtesy of Stacy. House banged on the door with his cane, it echoed loudly through the open space. There was then the sound of the door sliding and Cass was revealed in the opening. Her eyes narrowed as she realized who it was. "What do you want?"

"I came to check on the patient." He used his cane to lever the door opened further and lurched in.

"Dr. House?" Chase looked up, surprised.

"Chase, come to bed with me and take your clothes off." He said with relish.

"What are you doing here?" He looked over, past House. "Hello Dr. Wilson."

"I came to check on you. You needed a follow up."

"I could have come in to the office. You don't normally even see patients much less make house calls." Chase pointed out. He was sitting up only in the vaguest sense of the word. A closer description would be that his head was propped up against a pillow but he was still mostly lying down.

"'House calls', funny." He looked around. The two Aussies had been cozied up on the couch under a big, down comforter. Strangely there was no television playing anywhere. "So, what were you two up to? I hope we interrupted something." He wiggled his eye brows.

"Chase was helping me read through a script for an audition, if you must know. And who are you?" She snapped, waving at Wilson.

"Sorry, luv, Cass, this is Dr. Wilson. Dr. Wilson, this is me best mate, Cass." Chase made the introductions.

She smiled at the oncologist and he smiled back. Cass remembered that Chase liked Wilson and it didn't hurt that Wilson was very cute in a geeky guy sort of way. She would definitely enjoy sampling the local cuisine, if she had time. Both House and Chase rolled their eyes at the others' display.

"Chase, come on upstairs. I'm going to do your follow up." House started to limp towards the stairs. Chase didn't argue and rose slowly, stopping once he was standing to cover his eyes with his hand and lean against the couch. House looked back at him, concerned to note that Chase still looked very pale and wobbly.

When the blonde was steady again, he staggered towards the stairs and followed House up. As the reached the top, Chase immediately sat on the bed, leaning his head down. "So, I guess I can add ataxia and pain to the list of lingering symptoms along with nausea and vomiting." House commented as he turned on the bathroom light. It filled the room with enough light to see, but not enough to hurt Chase's eyes.

"What makes you think I am still experiencing nausea and vomiting?" Chase questioned as he straightened up and slid to the head of the bed, making room for House to sit at the foot. House was surprised to note that both sides of the bed had obviously been slept in.

"My brilliant medical mind tells me that given your dry, cracked lips you are dehydrated probably from nausea." House said loftily as he pulled out a few instruments from his knapsack. Chase looked at him skeptically. "But more blatant was that most people do not lounge about on their sofas with water filled buckets beside them unless they are about to be sick and don't want to get up."

"Ok, fine, so I'm still a little queasy." Chase rolled up his sleeve to allow House to put on the pressure cuff. He was chilly and tucked his bare feet under his duvet to keep them warm. Without another word, House stuffed a thermometer into his mouth then tilted his head back to feel his glands. For all of House's medical brilliance, he had a lousy bedside manner.

After a few moments, House removed the sleeve and thermometer and finally spoke to his patient. "Breathe." He commanded after be placed a painfully cold stethoscope bowl against Chase's chest. The Aussie did as commanded; only coughing once. His asthma wasn't so bad now that he could get up and move around a little. The muscles were still tight, causing him to wheeze and cough but he was no longer hacking up mouthfuls of mucus. "Any other complaints?" House questioned as he scribbled some notes on a small pad.

"No complaints."

"Bad choice of words. I could probably set you on fire and you wouldn't complain." House looked down at him, Chase would not allow his eyes to be caught. The elder doctor sighed. "Are you feeling better?" Chase nodded his head 'yes,' showing that he could now move his head and neck easier. "I guess you'll live." The Aussie still didn't say anything. House packed his things up, contemplating what to do next. His normal inclination was to turn to Chase and ask his question directly but his normal inclinations usually failed miserably with this duckling. Chase interrupted his musings before he could decide.

"Thank you, Dr. House, for coming to see me and for calling Cass." Chase gave him a slight glance from under his bangs and a weak smile.

"Sure. Can't count on Rowan to come and I wasn't about to do it." House wished he could stuff the words back in his mouth the moment he said them. He looked over and Chase had again found something remarkably interesting on his blank duvet. House sighed and realized that he was going to explode if he didn't clear some things up. "Why did you do it?" House asked, all joking aside.

"I told you. It was an accident. There was a code and I thought I was just tired. I didn't realize how sick I was until right before I passed out." Chase spoke quickly.

"No, not that. Why did you sell me out to Vogler? You were the one person in the department I thought wouldn't turn on me." He accused, trying not to let Chase know how hurt he was.

The Aussie didn't answer right away, but instead played with the edge of a pillow he had pulled into his lap. It was some sort of down-filled wall to protect him from House, a mushy line of defense to prevent the elder man from punching him or hugging him. House obliquely wondered which one would bother his duckling more. "You were going to fire me." He finally mumbled.

"So you decided to cure a headache by cutting off the head?"

"I didn't want to go. He promised me he would keep me around."

"And you believed him?" House snorted in derision. Chase had this weird way of being either impossibly cynical or ridiculously gullible. There was no rhyme or reason to it, no logic and therefore it annoyed House.

"You were going to get rid of me." Chase stammered out and realized how pathetic he sounded.

"What makes you think that I was going to fire you?" House finally asked. Not liking the way Chase sounded far too much like a kid begging not to be sent away. He wondered if Chase had ever had the balls to say that to his father. He doubted it.

"Because you tried."

"I picked you then because I was confirming a suspicion. Why else do you think I would have chosen you?"

"Why would you want to keep me around? Foreman's smart and forceful. Cameron's hot and hardworking. I can't compete with that." Chase answered dejectedly.

So that was it. Chase didn't bother in their rivalries very often because he assumed he was doomed to loose. "Foreman is smart and Cameron is hardworking but there is more to a good doctor than that. Foreman is brilliant but he is too logical. He doesn't know how to think outside the box, hell, he doesn't even want to admit that there is a world other than the box. Cameron is very diligent but she also lets herself be ruled by her emotions and looses sight of the big picture. She becomes emotionally crippled and can't make the right decision.

"But there is more to the puzzle than that." House sighed. He had to be delicate here. He didn't want to seem like he was playing favourites but he also wanted to convey to Chase how much confidence he actually did have in him. "You, Chase, are the creative and intuitive one. For all of Foreman's smarts, you usually beat him to the right answer because you look at things that he would never consider. And for all of Cameron's hard work, she can't get people to bond with her and trust her like you can. I never wanted you to leave, Chase."

"But." Chase interrupted, his eyes, burning with tears.

House stopped before he could say more. "But nothing," he reached out and grabbed his duckling's chin and forced him to meet the elder doctor's eyes. "I realize that your brain has been floating around in a pool of pus for the last week, but think about it. I offered to let Foreman leave, I didn't even attempt to stop Cameron; you were the only one I tried to make stay." House finally broke eye contact and let his duckling look away, when he saw Chase's eyes fill with tears. "So tell me, why did you really go to him?"

Chase gulped. "I didn't want to leave. I like it here. I wanted to stay. I just didn't think that you thought I was good enough to keep around."

"You weren't trying to get back at me for anything?" House had half assumed that Chase had run to Vogler because of Chase senior.

"No." He paused. "I don't know." Chase pulled the pillow up to his chest and hugged it. House could see that Chase was getting more and more agitated with their current conversation and to be fair, so was he. "Maybe a little but I never wanted it to go that far. I just wanted to show you what it felt like. But you didn't seem to care other than being angry with me."

"See how, what felt?" House was pretty sure he knew.

"I don't know." Immediately regretting speaking his mind.

"Yes you do. Tell me." House ordered. He realized he was not good at this sort of thing. He really could use Wilson right now.

"I wanted you to know what it felt like to have someone betray your trust, not to help but to deride you. To know what it feels like to have someone shred you to pieces and turn you into a joke just because they can or because they think its fun. But you didn't care." House could see a tear had slipped down Chase's cheek but in the dim light he could ignore it.

"Of course I cared, you moron. Why do think I did all those rotten things to you, for fun?" Chase looked over at him, showing he clearly thought House had taken joy in it. "Ok, maybe it was fun but I was punishing you for hurting me." He stuttered over the last. "Yes, hurting me." He repeated, realizing that he had been very hurt by it, not professionally but personally. "I never cared whenever Foreman ran to Cuddy because I never expected him to be loyal to me. But I not only expected you to be loyal I had a great deal of faith in you and you betrayed me."

Chase was silently crying as House accused him. They had never really spoken of this since it had happened. It had always just hung like a body swinging from the gallows in the town square, there for everyone to see but no one looked directly at it. "I never meant to betray you, I was desperate. I didn't know what else to do."

"Wow, someone worse at office politics than me, creepy." House commented, trying to lighten the mood.

"I know it's too little too late, but I am sorry. You can fire me if you want." The Aussie told him dejectedly.

"You really are a dullard, aren't you? If I wanted to fire you I would have done the minute Vogler left. I don't want you to leave! I don't know how to make it any clearer." House finally snapped at his sick fellow.

"Ok." Chase whispered, feeling thoroughly chastised.

House took a deep breath and decided that there was one more thing they needed to clear up. "Since we are airing dirty laundry, isn't there anything you want to ask me?" Chase stiffened. House wondered if his duckling would have the balls to do it. He shook his blonde head 'no.' "Nothing at all? Nothing that I might have done to you that you would like an explanation for?" Chase turned away from him. He could see the tears spilling faster over the man's lashes, even though his eyes were pressed shut. "You aren't even remotely curious why I asked Rowan to help with the leper kid?" Finally he got a 'yes' headshake. "Then ask me." He said.

"Why?" It was half way between a word and a breath. Chase didn't really know what to make of this whole conversation. He couldn't explain to House why he had turned on him because he didn't really know why. All he knew was that he felt terrible that he had done it and that House had every right to get rid of him. But now the elder doctor might be telling him that House didn't hate him, that he may actually like him. Why couldn't House just tell him? Why did everything have to be so damn confusing?

"Not good enough. Ask me what you want to know." House was trying to force his duckling to stand up to him. He wanted to make Chase tell him what he had done was wrong.

"Why did you ask my father to stay?" He finally asked. His father used to do this to him all the time too when he was a kid. Force him to ask for his inhaler in Czech with perfect inflection, while he was wheezing and gasping. It was just another way to make Chase submissive.

"Not what you really want to know." House corrected. He wondered how much further he could push Chase. The Aussie was very ill and clearly confused and uncomfortable. That was why House had planned to have this conversation now. If Chase were in complete control of his faculties, it could be just as bad for House as for Chase. Or more likely, Chase would have run away before House could get his question out. They both needed this to happen if they were ever going to be friends or at least genial co workers again. He leaned closer to the blonde, trying to catch his eye.

House occasionally liked to smoke cigars at home and the scent clung to him faintly. Chase breathed in the smell and felt his heart contract. It reminded him of his father and long, boring hours spent closed off in his smoky study learning to speak Czech and his father's derision because he had misplaced an accent mark or his lack of derision when his son had excelled. But it also reminded him of the good parts of being in there because it was the only time he and his father ever spent together uninterrupted by his mother or patients. It was the only time that Chase got his father all to himself and he treasured it even then. Why did every happy memory have to be tainted by some misery? Was it even possible for him to be happy and not be sad about something at the same time?

He had wanted to know why House had betrayed him for so long but now the time was here, he couldn't force the words out. It hurt too much. He was too afraid House would yell at him; call him a fool, coward, or worse. Maybe if he just stayed quiet, House would go away and Chase could continue to worry this problem in his head. Then, he would be the only one accusing himself.

He looked up and House was still there. In a rush he finally let the words spill out. It was like vomiting, it was unpleasant but necessary and hoped he would feel better when it was over. "Why did you make me deal with my father?" His throat and chest ached with the strain of holding back sobs and accusations. He felt like there was a dragon, thrashing his tail and clawing apart his insides.

'About damn time!" House thought. Having a personal conversation with Chase was like getting a Brazilian wax done hair by hair. "Because I thought you needed."

"It was none of your business." Chase finally snapped. All the anger that he had held inside for the last few months finally came bubbling back to the top. "You never would have done something like that to Foreman or Cameron."

"No, I wouldn't have because they wouldn't let me." House answered but inside he thought, "I don't worry about them swallowing a bottle of pills because it hurts less than dealing with their problems. I'm not afraid that Foreman will go home and cry his eyes out if I yell at him and I'm not scared that Cameron will lock herself into some weirdo self destructive relationship just because the other person pays attention to her. I worry about it even more now that I read your files and talked to your father again.'

"You don't have any right to interfere in my personal life. If I choose to never speak to him again, it shouldn't make any difference to you. I don't need you telling me that I am handling everything wrong. I know that. I know things are broken between us but I don't know how to fix it." Chase was crying for real now and House wanted to run away. Damn his gimpy leg!

"You aren't handling everything wrong, Chase. In fact, given what a total prick he is to you, I think you are way too nice to him." House tried to soothe.

"No, he isn't. It's my fault. I," was as far as House let him get. Chase was tired of this conversation. Either people reacted like Cameron and told him he was a monster for not forgiving Rowan or they reacted like Cass and thought that Robert was a fool for still caring about his father.

"Catholic guilt is a wonderful thing, isn't it? My ducklings amuse the hell out of me. Foreman thinks he is everything. Cameron thinks everything is about her. And you just think everything is your fault." House laughed; unbelievably uncomfortable and wishing he had kept his mouth shut. He could have put up with the way things were for another few months until Chase when home. Why, oh why, did he ever try to fix things?

"But it was my fault. I screwed up. I wasn't." Chase stopped talking. He didn't want to explain any of this to House because he doubted House cared.

"Chase, that you haven't told him or me to bugger off yet just shows that either you are so needy and emotionally maladjusted that you can barely function in society or you should be nominated for sainthood. I'm leaning towards the first choice."

"Is that why you thought I needed to talk to him?" The Aussie asked quietly, trying to swallow his tears.

'I thought you needed to from you first interview. You shouldn't run away from the only family member you have. I wondered if he had beaten you but he has done worse. He ignored you. He left and forced you to grow up before you were ready. He made you think you needed to be perfect to be worth anything. He made you so terrified of failure that now you are afraid to try anything. And he made you prone to latching on to anyone who has authority over you in a most unhealthy way.

'I made you do it because you need to tell him what he has done to you. You need to stop swallowing everything until you choke to death on it. You need to make him tell you that he loves you and that you are brilliant and talented. And most of all, you need to hear how proud he is of you. Because; if you don't hear it from him you are never, ever going to believe it. So, you had better do it soon or you won't get another chance and I hate to see what that would do to you.' Was what House had wanted to say but instead he fell back on his stock answer. "Because, I was curious."

"I see." Chase had tears falling down his face again and his voice hitched between the words. House felt awful. Was he really any better than his duckling? Chase couldn't tell people that he was upset or that they were hurting him. But House couldn't tell people that he cared, that he loved.

House realized it was safer to let things stay like this. Rowan would die soon, and Chase would be a wreck. If the Aussie thought that he could come to House for sympathy or support then he might. House didn't think he would be able to keep pretending he didn't care, if that happened. He rose to leave and get away from Chase's forlorn tears. But before he could stop himself, "For what it is worth, I'm sorry too. I didn't realize how much it would hurt you." He mumbled as he headed for the stairs. Chase still sat on the bed, crying, his face buried in the pillow. "Take nap for awhile. You need to rest." The Aussie didn't say anything, but burrowed under his blankets and sobbed into his pillow.

Downstairs, House limped in on more sexual tension than he had seen since he and Stacy had been alone in his office after hours. He wondered if she should offer to go out and get his friend some condoms.

"So how did it go?" Wilson asked, pulling away from Chase's friend.

"Fine. He's sleeping for bit."

"Is he going to be ok? I was telling Dr. Wilson that he has been really queasy and doesn't want to eat anything." House wanted to say something nasty because he was in a foul mood from his conversation with Chase, but he couldn't be rude once he saw the concern in her eyes. Robert needed someone that could cared about him.

"He should be. Wilson, go back to the pharmacy and pick up something for his nausea." House ordered. He wanted to talk to Cass alone. "While you're at it, grab us some dinner."

"Yes, boss." Wilson intoned sarcastically. The oncologist pulled back on his jacket and headed out of the door, leaving the singer and the elder doctor alone.

"So?" House started. "You two boffing each other?"

"No, not that it is any of your business."

"You're just friends?"

"Yes. And I don't like the phrase, 'just friends.' It makes it sound like friends aren't important and no one is more important to me than he is." She told him and hitched her self up onto a bar stool. She was dressed very casually, in a pair of Chase's pajama pants, a tank top, and a hoody. Her long, brown hair was out and she wore no make up. House would have said she was beautiful if not for her large nose. House was struck with how much Cass reminded him of a younger, brown-eyed Cuddy from certain angles. So, finally he had an explanation as to why Chase liked Cuddy so much.

"'Kay. Other than being queasy, how has he been doing?" House questioned.

"I'm not sure. He hasn't really done much more than sleep and throw up since we got home. He said it was normal but I'm still worried."

"It will take time for him to get back to normal. He'll probably still have headaches for a few months afterwards too. But he was lucky, it could have been much worse." House told her philosophically as he settled himself on a stool and swallowed a Vicodin.

"He is coming home with me." She stated, while he was in mid swallow.

"He didn't mention that to me." House countered, worried it might be true.

"I haven't told him yet, but he will. You don't deserve to have him here."

"Did it ever occur to you that he might want to stay here?"

"Why would he? It's cold, dreary, the food is terrible, there are too many Americans, and you treat him like something you scrapped off your shoe."

He wanted to ask her why she thought it was her business but realized that he would react the same way if someone treated Wilson badly. Instead he said, "He doesn't complain."

"He never complains. He would let you cut off his hand if you said you were proud of him." She sighed. She loved Robert more than anyone in the world. He was always there for her when she needed him and never asked anything in return. He didn't try to impress her or lie to her. He was the one person with whom she could always be herself. She knew that he would love her if she put out a bad CD or film and he didn't care if she put on five pounds or if she looked like she was getting crow's feet. No matter what happened, he would smile at her, hug her, kiss her on the top of the head, and find someway to cheer her up. If she didn't have him, she didn't know what would happen to her.

But sometimes it was really hard to care so much about him. He had a habit of trying to push everyone away when he was in pain and he could be very hurtful. But worse was the way he constantly tried to punish himself for sins real and imagined. He seemed to think it was ok for people to treat him like shit, as long as they were paying attention to him. He never stopped people from hurting him because he was too afraid of loosing their good favour. That was when she felt she needed to step in. She had done it with his father, her own mother, and now House.

She had been expecting a fight from House, but she was somewhat shocked by what she heard next. "So you two have known each other for a long time, tell me about his childhood. What was his mother like, were he and his father always estranged?" House was not about to turn down a chance to find out personal things about his tight lipped duckling regardless of how unfriendly the bearer of the new was.

She sighed, wondering what to do. She knew Robin would not want her telling his boss anything personal, but she also knew that he really liked it here and wanted to stay. So maybe knowing personal things would make the bastard be nicer to him. "Do you see that picture over the fireplace?" She pointed to large print. It was a black and white photograph with shiny slivers and whites painted in certain spots. It was of Sydney Harbour. He looked at it. "His mother, Abagaile painted it. It was the last one she did before she died. It was taken from the roof of his house in Sydney. She could make something that you saw everyday seem new and beautiful. She was special." Cass had always loved and admired Chase's mother. She always tended to lay the blame for Chase's problems more squarely on his father than his mother.

"Were they close?"

"Yes, very. Chase took it extremely hard when she died."

"She was an alcoholic wasn't she?"

"Yes, she was also a drugged up whore for awhile. I loved her to death and admired her like an idol but she was a lousy mother. Most of the time she was too drunk or drugged up to remember she had a son. The only time she did remember was when she needed him to pick her up off the floor after she passed out. She used to pass out and lock him out of the house or go on pissers that lasted for days and never tell him where she was. I don't think she kept a promise to him in her entire life and most of the time she seemed to forget that he was younger than her. But he loved her and I don't think he ever got over her death."

"Where was daddy Chase?" House didn't know why he should feel shocked at hearing this, he could have surmised as much from her file.

"At work, at church, anywhere that didn't involve taking care of his son. That bastard left Robin alone to deal with his mother dying and didn't lift a finger to help. He didn't even come to bloody funeral. My father had to go and guilt him into seeing his son after she died. And even then, he didn't care enough about Robin to let him stay in Melbourne. Dr. Chase sent Robin back to Sydney and to medical school within three weeks of his mother's funeral. I don't know how he managed to do it."

"But Rowan is a damn good doctor." House threw in, completely sharing her opinion of the elder Dr. Chase.

"As you are well aware, being a good doctor does make you a good human being."

"True. But neither does being a pop singer and actress."

"No, it doesn't. But I try to be good to Robin unlike you."

"I don't owe him anything. He is my employee, not my child." House finally exploded.

"Then treat him with the same respect and civility you would any other employee. Stop interfering in his life and stop acting like you want more from him. Either choose to be his friend or choose to not be but stop lingering in the middle giving mixed signals." She snapped.

House thought for a moment. That was the problem. He couldn't deny that he cared about his duckling and wanted him to be happy but he wasn't sure how far he was willing to go. Was he willing to actually claim friendship? Rather than answering, he took the coward's way out. "I like to think I can be both."

"You don't seem like you are very good at either."

"Look, Chase and I had some problems but we worked them out. Things will go back to normal when he gets back to work."

"And what is normal? You making him work himself into exhaustion? Not giving him any time off?"

"No, he'll go back to his regular schedule. I'm not angry with him anymore."

"That's awfully kind of you." She stood and walked over to Chase's desk, returning with a piece of paper. She handed it to House. "My therapist sent me this. I wanted Robin to read it so he could see that you were not worth your salt. But I thought you might like to see it."

It read:

_" Abuse and Adult Child of an Alcoholic _

_- Often have difficultly or fearful of identifying, understanding or expressing feelings_

_- Often feel guilty when him/her stand up for him/herself._

_- Often allows him/herself to be yelled at or blamed._

_- Often allows him/herself to be humiliated in public._

_- Often called selfish or accused of not doing what the other abuser wants._

_- Often finds him/herself compulsively people pleasing, complying or running away._

_- Often derided or made to feel childish after expression of his/her needs and feelings._

_- Often feels inappropriate compassion, forgiveness, or understanding for abuser; BEFORE appropriate anger has been expressed._

_- He/she consistently feel guilty, fearful or angry with abuser._

_- Often has an inability to trust kindness or sees ulterior motives for kindness._

_- Often afraid or intimidated by people, particularly authority figures._

_- Approval of others often more important to him/her than his/her own preferences or beliefs._

_- When someone gets angry at him/her, he/she shrivels inside._

_- Often feels isolated and alone._

_- Can answer 'yes' to a lot of questions found on an "are you an alcoholic" questionnaire although he/she never picks up a drink._

_- Often uncomfortable with intimacy and revealing personal information about him/herself to another person._

_- Often hang onto relationships that aren't healthy._

_- Currently involved with an alcoholic/addict._

_- Currently involved with any kind of compulsive personality - such as a workaholic_

_An Adult Child of an Alcoholic (ACOA) frequently stays in abusive situations. Abusers may be parents, employers, spiritual advisors, lovers, spouses, friends, or therapists. Abuse arises from a need, to control, vent anger, or to stamp out signs of health, dissension, independence, love, kindness or joy--expression which the abuser resents or doesn't understand and may thus label as weakness._

_Abuse can produce negative effects such as borderline functioning, disorientation, loss of identity, depression, false confidence, no confidence, acted out anger, lying, self isolation, shame, partial disassociation, or even to perceive the abuser as "wonderful" or "my protector"._

A common response to abuse in ACOA'S is to blame his/her for the problem because he/she feels that he/she is dishonest, lazy, scattered, procrastinator, selfish, intolerant, spiritual midget, ect."

House folded the paper and looked her square in the eye. He was not an abuser and if Chase felt that way, it was his own fault for not standing up for himself! He was not about to feel guilty because Robert's parents screwed him up. It was not his job to put the Aussie back together. But there was a part of him that contracted in sympathy because everything he read sounded exactly like his quietest duckling even though Chase tried his hardest to hide these things.

"If you think he has this many problems you should send him to a therapist too."

"I tried. He won't go." She sighed and was about to tell him what she thought of that but gave up. House reminded her quite a bit of Rowan. He couldn't admit he had done anything wrong to save his life. But unlike Rowan, she could see that he actually did care about Robin. Now, she just had to find a way to get Robin to see it. "Dr. House, I realize that he may mean nothing to you, but he means something to me. Can't you just do the right thing?"

But what was the right thing? House wondered. Rather than asking her he just told her. "Chase and I have worked things out. There is no reason for you to worry anymore."

"Good on ya, mate. That's all I wanted."

"So we are cool?" He asked, finding it odd that she now accepted him without a fight.

"Yeah, as long as you don't hurt him anymore, I won't have to get nasty." She smiled sweetly.

Wilson soon returned and noticed that the atmosphere was much calmer than when he left. He had been worried about leaving the two alone together but it appeared that they had reached some sort of a truce. He entered and placed the sac of food from the deli on the counter and removed the bag of meds from his coat pocket.

Cass approached the bag and opened it, pulling out the contents and examining them in confusion. "What is this?" She tipped a plastic bowl of the city's best chicken and matzo soup, peering under it.

"Jewish penicillin." Wilson smiled at her, wishing he weren't married. "Is he still asleep?"

"Yeah." House mumbled as he sniffed the sandwiches trying to find his Rueben, glaring at the pickles wrapped in plastic at the bottom of the bag.

"I'll go wake him for dinner." Wilson offered as he headed towards the stairs. He slowly walked up the open staircase, trying not to look down, he was afraid of heights and even this short distance made his hands sweaty.

House had left only a small light on in the bathroom and the rest of the space was very dark. Wilson carefully made his way to the bed and sat down, looking at Chase. He still looked very pale and thin to the oncologist's eyes but better than he had looked. "Chase." Wilson called his name quietly. The younger man roused and opened his bleary eyes to look at the other doctor. "I brought you some dinner and some meds." He rose and filled a glass from the bathroom tap.

"Thanks, what did you bring me?" Chase asked as he sat up. Crying had again been a bad idea. His head was pounding and his nose was stuffed up.

"I brought you some chicken soup from Gershwitz's Deli, Cuddy told me you liked it. I also brought you these." Wilson produced three pills for the Aussie to swallow and handed him the glass of water. Chase looked at him questioningly. "Phenergan and Cimetidine, for your stomach and Celexa if you want it." Wilson didn't look at Chase as he said the last. It didn't matter though because the Aussie was also looking down, unable to meet Wilson's eyes. He rolled the pills around between his fingers without actually swallowing them. "I brought you some Zofran too, incase you want to stay wake but you need to take them. Cassie said that you had been vomiting a lot the last two days. If you can't hold anything down by tomorrow you are going to have to go back into hospital for some fluids."

"I know." Chase whispered.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Wilson asked as he sat back down facing the ill doctor.

"I would have, if I were still this nauseous tomorrow." Chase tried to apologize.

"That isn't what I meant. Why didn't you come to me to have your anti-depressants refilled?" Wilson felt awful that Chase had been walking around the last few months without his meds.

"You were busy with your patients. I didn't want to bother you."

"It would have taken two seconds."

"And after Vogler, I didn't think you would want to help me." Chase finished dejectedly.

"Why?" He couldn't understand why Chase would put himself through the ups and downs of uncontrolled depression when help was so readily available.

"You're House's best friend. Why would you want to help me?"

"Because I'm a doctor and you needed help. Because, you are my patient. Because, I like to think that I am your friend too." Wilson tried to catch the younger man's eyes to show he meant what he said.

"But after what happened, I didn't deserve your help. I screwed up."

"So apparently living with Catholic guilt is about the same as Jewish guilt, only yours comes from Christ and ours from not calling our mothers enough." Wilson smiled. "You made a mistake, Chase, you are human it is allowed. You can't keep punishing yourself over it forever. And you can't let House punish you for it any longer either." Wilson took a deep breath. "Did you two talk?" He knew Greg was planning to talk to Chase about what had been going on between them but he didn't know if House actually had.

"Yes." Not surprising, Chase gave no other details.

"Good. I hope things have been worked out between you two. But regardless of what goes on between you and House, I hope you know that you can always come to me if you need anything." Wilson was hoping to lay the ground work of a stronger friendship with the Aussie. He knew that Rowan wasn't long for this world and he was afraid that Chase would be angry with Greg for not warning him, which would leave Chase virtually alone in New Jersey. He didn't want that. Generally speaking , he was too nice of a guy to let something like that happen. So he was all but volunteering to be Chase's big brother, if the Aussie wanted it.

"Thank you, Dr. Wilson." Chase answered thickly, not sure what else to say. Wilson was so nice but at the same time could be even colder and more calculating than House. He wanted a friend to trust and confide in but he wasn't sure he could bring himself to take the leap of faith that was required. He would have to think about it. But before he knew what was happening, Wilson had wrapped his arms around Chase, giving him a brief but tight man-hug. Chase was touched, but didn't return it.

The elder doctor recognized the use of his title, a subtle rebuff. "Now, take your pills and come down and eat before your soup gets cold." Wilson commanded. Chase swallowed all of the pills and allowed Wilson to give him a hand up out of bed.

The two headed downstairs, and Chase squinted at what he considered to be bright lights. Even when he didn't have nausea inducing headaches, he still tended to keep the lights in his flat turned down very low. The hospital was so loud, bright, and chaotic, that it made him feel better to have his home calm, quiet, and dim. Cass had already laid out all the food at his table and he gratefully sank down into a chair beside the bowl of chicken soup. She ran her fingers through his hair and placed a gentle kiss on the top of his head as she set a cool glass of water in front of him. He smiled at her, feeling better already. He liked it when people kissed him on the top of the head. He didn't know why, it just made him happy.

As soon as she was seated, beside Chase and still far away from House, they began to eat. Chase made himself choke down at least a quarter of the bowl of soup, knowing the meds Wilson gave him would allow him to keep it down. However, the prospect of eating was nauseating at best. So was watching everyone else eat fatty, nitrate rich deli food. That was just one of the many reasons he said nothing at dinner but he did enjoy watching the others interact. Cass was, as usual, the center of attention. She flirted with Wilson and talked over House. Wilson flirted with her just as much and House blatantly shot jibes at his friend over it. Chase was pleased to note, that there was much less venom in the exchanges between Cassie and House.

House observed as well. He would have to have a long talk with Wilson. But that was expected, his friend often tended to ignore his personal problems in favour of getting attention from beautiful women. House only wished he could do it too. But more interesting was watching Chase and Cass interact. At first, he had assumed, like Wilson, that the two were lovers but now he wasn't so sure. They were far too relaxed around each other and Chase didn't seem in the least bit fazed that Wilson was sniffing around his woman.

House also noticed that they had an extremely strange dynamic. Chase completely allowed himself to be bullied by her yet she didn't take advantage of it in the least. She completely dominated the situation and he let her without even trying to stop her. She was as loud and extroverted as he was quiet and introverted. She was intelligent and witty, he had learned that from their conversations, but she wasn't any where near as smart or quick tongued as Chase. She was also much calmer than his duckling. For all that Chase cultivated a laid back attitude, if you watched him closely for long enough you could pick up clues that showed exactly how high strung and neurotic he actually is. But most of all he noticed that she functioned as a sort of shield for Chase. He was pretty sure neither of them realized that she was doing it, or if they did they had mutually agreed she do so. She was the life of the party and Chase tried to blend into the walls. She deflected attention away from her friend, while he pushed people towards her. As strange as it was, it must be working, because Chase seemed calmer than House had seen him in quite some time or maybe his meds were just kicking in.

However, what caught him as even stranger was that the two trusted each other utterly. House had never seen it with Chase before. The Aussie was totally unguarded around his friend. Chase met her eyes when he talked to her. He allowed her to touch him in a way that would make him flinch or stiffen if Cameron or Wilson tried. And, the blonde actually laughed with her. House hadn't heard Chase laugh in months, not since before his father had come to see him. He had heard the duckling's polite, fake chuckle or a derisive snort but not a true laugh. It was nice to hear.

When there were all through, Cass smiled at her friend and said to the other doctors, "Robin and I were going to watch a really bad movie. Do you want to join us?" House realized she was looking at Chase for permission. Maybe she didn't bully him as much as House thought she did.

"Yeah, stay and watch it with us?" Chase echoed, showing he didn't mind. Wilson needed no other prodding and jumped up to help clear the table, like a well trained little husband, while Cass put the movie in the DVD player. Chase offered to get drinks for everyone, but all three of them told him to sit down, he meekly complied. Chase didn't really want them to stay, but he felt like he should let them to keep Cass entertained. He realized he was being dull because all he had done for the last two days was sleep and try not to throw up. He felt she deserved better than that so he agreed even though he was pretty sleepy.

Soon they were all settled on Chase's low leather couches, displeasing House because they were really hard for him to get in and out of. Wilson took the shorter couch, House took the chair, and Chase and Cass got the longer sectional sofa with the lounger on one end. House had to stifle a grin as he watched Cass yank Chase over by his shirt so that his head was on a pillow in her lap. She then covered him up with a large feather comforter and started the movie. She was right, it was really bad. Some stupid over dubbed piece of shit kung fu movie from the Hong Kong movie mill. He and Wilson thought it was ridiculous, but he did remember Chase mentioning that he and his best friend had a fondness for really bad kung fu movies.

Much as House and Wilson expected, Chase lasted about ten minutes into the show before he fell asleep. The drugs Wilson gave him put him into a nice, deep sleep, cuddled against his best friend. If House were the warm and fuzzy type, which he was not, he would have thought it was cute. After the movie ended, and House had to admit there was a certain humour in it if you just laughed at it, the two doctors rose to leave.

"Do you need help with him?" Wilson asked, looking at the slumbering duckling and helping House out of the chair.

"I don't know, do I?" She looked skeptically at her friend. "Will I be able to wake him up or do I need to leave him down here?"

"You should be able to wake him up. The drugs weren't that strong. He may walk into walls if you let, though." Wilson smiled his most charming grin at her. House rolled his eyes and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed a number into it and a few seconds later there was a loud beeping that made the Aussie shoot up and look around, wide eyed.

"Problem solved." House said as he hung up his phone but the shrill beeping continued until Wilson turned off Chase's pager. "Go to bed, Chase." House ordered then turned to leave, Wilson following behind him.

The two rode the lift down to the ground floor, Cass being nicer than Chase and telling them the punch code they had to enter to open it, and walked out into the cool night. Wilson was the first to break the silence as the entered his car. "He looks a lot better. I think he'll be fine."

"Yeah, he'll be fine. I'm his doctor, was there ever any doubt?"

"Yes. I was a bit worried when he passed out, spiked that 105 fever, wouldn't wake up ect. But I never should have doubted you." Wilson answered his friend's playful tone as he started the motor. He then turned serious. "So you two were up there a long time. Way too long for a mere examination. Did you two talk?" He already knew that they had, but he wanted House's side of the story, hopefully his friend would be more forthcoming than Chase.

"Yeah, we did."

Apparently not, "Well how did it go?"

"Fine," House sighed and decided to come clean. "I asked him why he went to Vogler."

"What did he say?" Wilson was all ears now.

"That he didn't want to loose his job. But after much prodding he admitted that part of it was to get back at me for his father. Mostly I think he was just scared." House answered.

"So things are cool between you two?"

"Yeah. He asked me why I made him work with his father. I don't think he liked my answer."

"Did you tell him the truth?"

"I told him I just wanted to see what was going on between them, what made them tick."

"So you lied." House nodded. "Why didn't you just tell him that it started out as curiosity then you got worried? Would it kill you to admit that you care about someone?"

"Yes, it might. But that wasn't what he wanted to hear. Rowan, Mama Chase, and the Catholic Church have that poor kid so back assward that I think unsolicited kindness actually causes him physical pain. It's better that we remain on a professional level." House hoped Wilson bought his answer. He knew that there was no way that he and Chase were just co workers but he also knew that neither of them were ready to really be friends. House was too lazy and surly to deal with someone as needy as Chase and the Aussie was too afraid to trust anyone and actually give himself away to a new relationship of any kind. Maybe things would change after Rowan died, but for right now the status quo was good enough.

"Sure, whatever you say." Wilson agreed, though he knew damn well House was lying to him.

"So what was with you and Ms. Thing in there?" House changed the subject to one that would make Wilson uncomfortable now.

"Nothing. I'm married, remember."

"Yeah, that was why you were sniffing around Lady Platypus, hoping she would take you for a ride downunder?"

"Shut up, House." Wilson snapped because that had been exactly what he had been hoping. The rest of the ride was silent.

Two days later, House again dropped by Chase's loft. He wanted to check on his duckling and also wanted to talk to him. He had been thinking quite a bit the last few days and he realized that he was being selfish, even for him. It was obvious Chase was unhappy here, it was obvious he could get a job somewhere else, it was obvious he and his father had some unfinished business, and it was obvious that he was happier around Cassie. Therefore, House realized he needed to let his duckling go. He didn't want to, he wished that the little voice inside his head that sounded a lot like a cross between Wilson and Cuddy hadn't kept telling him he was being a prick but it had.

So he stood uncertainly in front of the building, waiting for Chase to let him in. Before he buzzed the pent house a third time, Stacy showed up behind him, carrying groceries.

"Greg, what brings you here? Come to torment your employees on there days off too?" She questioned as he opened the outer door.

"I came to sleep with Chase's friend, if you must know."

"Good luck, she would eat you alive. She is young enough to be your daughter, if you were precocious, and is a celebrity in her own country." She opened the lift for him and he carried two of her bags. It was strange, like the last five years hadn't happened, until House felt a twinge in his thigh. "Help me take these in and I'll go up with you. I want to watch." She smiled and winked at him and he followed her in.

"Where's hubby?" House looked around the flat and saw that it was in fact very tastefully done and looked totally different than Chase's loft.

"Short Hills. He went home to check on our house and run a few errands. He should be back soon." She answered as she put her things away. Then she produced a plate of snickerdoodles from the ice box. "Let's go." House tried to steal one and she batted his hand away. "These are for Chase, not you."

"But I'm hungry too." He pouted and she handed him a cookie, unable to resist his blue eyes.

"Here, you big baby. I made these especially for him because they have tons of butter and sugar in them."

"And you think he is going to eat something with that bad for him. This is the same guy who puts alfalfa weeds on his vegemite sandwiches instead of lettuce."

"He needs to put back on some weight. I was talking to Cassie yesterday and she said that he has lost 8 pounds in the last week. If he gets much thinner, he won't be any fun for Lisa and me to watch."

"As long as my staff serves a useful purpose at the hospital."

They arrived at the door and knocked, there was no answer. Stacy inserted her key and slid the door opened. The first thing that House noticed, was that the place didn't smell like antiseptic like it usually did. Rather it smelled like a heavenly combination of tomatoes, garlic, and oregano. They both drifted to the kitchen as saw the mess strewn all over the counters and large caldron simmering on the burner. There were half diced tomatoes, onions, garlic cloves, oil, and all sorts of scary seafood all over the place. House opened the lid and enjoyed the aroma. The smell of food made the place finally seem like a home.

"So where the hell is Chase?" House looked around and didn't see or hear his duckling.

"On the roof, would be my guess." Stacy pointed to a large opened window that led to the fire escape. "Take that up to the roof. He likes to hang out up there on his days off." She pulled a spoon from the drawer and tasted the sauce House looked at her.

"Is it as good as it smells?"

"Better." She told him and handed him the spoon. It was good.

"I think I'll be staying for dinner." House commented as he headed towards the fire escape and looked at it skeptically. "Are you coming?" He asked, hoping that he could watch where she was going before he had to try it himself.

"No, Lisa and I were going to go shoe shopping this afternoon. You two are one your own." She waved and left. He watched her sourly. He wished he could hate her, because it would make things much easier. However, the truth of the fact was that he still loved her and that sometimes, like now, he could fool himself into thinking they were a couple again and that nothing had changed. Then he would see Mark or his leg would ache and he would be reminded that five years of pain and misery had passed since then and he was alone, which depressed him. He took a Vicodin.

He pushed the maudlin thoughts away and headed for the fire escape. It was just as hard as he thought it would be. He finally managed to struggle up the fire escape and onto the roof. It was not an easy task and he was sweating slightly by the time he approached Chase. His youngest duckling was sitting in a lounger with his knees pulled up and a book balanced on them. He had his back to the sun and sunglasses on. House looked around the roof. For all the finishing touches that the actual loft lacked, the roof was amazing. There was a huge fountain that ran the entire length of one wall that made a gentle whooshing noise, reminiscent of the ocean's lapping tide. The center was covered with lush grass and there were two more fountains in the other corners. It was a gorgeous and serene garden and something that could only be done on the heavily reinforced roof of an industrial building. A normal roof would have collapsed under the weight but the steel girders that ran along the interior ceiling supported it nicely.

"Nice place you have here, but not handicap accessible." He commented as he hobbled over towards the blonde.

"I didn't expect there to be any handicap peopled up here." Chase answered him as he closed his book. It was a fiction book by Dan Brown. House was somewhat surprised that Chase would be reading a book that leaned towards being unfriendly to the Catholic Church.

"Why are you sitting up here?" House questioned as he caught his breath and looked around, enjoying the view.

"Have you seen my kitchen? It looks like an Italian market exploded all over it. If I stayed down there where I could see it I would feel compelled to clean it up and then Cass would kill me. I came up there so I didn't have to look at it." There was also an untouched stack of decorating magazines beside him. House looked down at them, picking one up.

"Actually planning on learning how to match fabrics?" He questioned.

"Why break with tradition?" Chase smiled. "Actually, Cass wants to redecorate our house in Sydney. I pretend I care and then she doesn't feel bad when she paints it some ungodly colour."

"You two share a house?" House was surprised. He and Wilson had been having and on again off again debate about whether Cass and Chase had or hadn't slept together. Wilson was sure they had, while House firmly believed they had not.

"Yeah, for the last three years or so. It makes sense. My house is really too big for one person and it saves her the trouble of looking after her own place. Plus, I haven't been there in over a year and she is frequently gone on tour or film shoots."

"Interesting? How big is it?"

"About 3700 square meters." Chase answered. House's jaw dropped.

"That's like 12,000 square feet. That is freaking huge."

"It isn't all on one story or anything. It is three stories and the roof is counted in that." Chase didn't want House to think he had some sort of excessive living situation back home even though he did.

"Why not sell it and just rent an apartment?"

"My mum had this thing with real estate, when she died she left me a huge house on Sydney harbour, where Cass and I live; an estate in St. Francis Bay and one in Sun City in South Africa; a beach house on Bondi; and a flat in London. I haven't been able to bring myself to get rid of any of them. I guess I am sort of a pack rat about things like that. Besides, Cass likes to use them." He shrugged.

House didn't think it was that strange to not sell off very expensive property especially if they had sentimental value. He motioned towards the fountains. "What is with you and water? You have that huge fish tank bubbling and all these fountains tinkling. It makes me have to tinkle."

"I like the sound." Chase answered noncommittally.

"Why?" House lowered himself onto the end of the lounger after Chase curled his legs up to make room.

"It reminds me of home. I've always lived right up against the ocean or the harbour. I miss it." Chase looked off into the distance, squinting. The Aussie looked much better, being able to hold down his meals had obviously made a huge difference but it was clear his head still hurt. He sounded melancholy.

House decided to change the subject. He wanted to come over to Chase's house at least once and not make the younger man cry. "So where is your cohort? How can I admire her ass if she isn't here?"

"She went for a run in the park."

"Jealous?" House lifted an eyebrow, noticing for the first time in over a year that Chase had a smattering of very pale freckles across his nose and cheeks.

"Unbelievably. So, when can I come back to work?" He put his book down and looked straight at House. Even though he had been lamenting his lack of time off, now he was bored stiff and tired of sitting home with nothing to do. Even having Cassie around was not alleviating his natural drive to actually do things. For all that he appeared lazy; he had the sort of restless intellect that got bored very easily.

House paused for a moment and took a deep breath. "Ah, that is what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh." Chase felt like the floor had just dropped out from under him. He felt weak and shaky, fearing he was about to be fired. He mentally prepared himself for the let down.

"I've been thinking. If you still want to go. I mean, if you still want to resign and go home, I'll let you. I'm not going to force you to stay someplace you are miserable." House managed to say. It was not easy basically admitting he had been wrong.

"Do you want me to go?" Chase asked.

"For Christ's sake, this isn't about me! This is about what you want. For once in your miserable life, stop worrying about what other people want from you and do what you want. Don't think about what I want or what your father will think, or even what your little girly girl wants from you. Do what will make you happy!" House commanded.

Chase looked down, a million thoughts running through his head. He didn't want his father to see him as a quitter but he was really homesick. He loved his job but Cass very much wanted him to come home. Cameron and Foreman drove him nuts sometimes but he liked Wilson, Cuddy, and House. He wanted to stay but what if House wanted him to leave? He wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to do but House was waiting for an answer. He looked up at his boss and said what he hoped House wanted to hear, still unable to get past his ingrained desire to please. "I don't want to leave."

House sighed. Sometimes, like now, he really wanted to bash his duckling's head in with his cane. Chase couldn't even give a straight answer when it came to something as simple as whether he wanted to keep his job. Saying that he 'didn't want to leave' was not the same as thing as saying he 'wanted to stay.' If it killed him, someday House was going to get the Aussie to make some sort of unequivocal personal declaration that displeased someone.

"Chase, are you happy here?" House asked him

"Happy?"

"The opposite of sad."

"I guess. I mean I was before." Chase took a deep breath. "Are things going to be the same if I go back?"

"As far as I'm concerned that is all in past. You are back to being my cutest lapdog."

"Then I want to stay." Chase smiled.

"Ok. You can come back half days starting Wednesday." House answered.

"So I only have to work 10 hour days?" Chase questioned with a slight smile on his face. He realized he had made the right decision to make House happy.

"I was thinking closer to 4 but we'll see."

"Besides, how would I get out of my contract?" Chase asked innocently.

"Well here's the thing." House stammered.

"What you mean that the contract was useless and that you just wanted me to stay?" He smiled evilly. "Just because I'm blonde doesn't mean I am actually stupid."

"I believe I told you that earlier." House had been planning to leave, when Cass's head popped up over the edge of wall. She was carrying a tray with a tea pot, two cups of tea, some biscuits, a small box, and a large tumbler of orange juice.

"Dr. House, I thought I saw your midlife crisis on wheels out there." She greeted him. She was wearing a red silk kimono and no shoes. She handed Robert a cup of tea and patted him on the head.

"Be nice." He admonished as he accepted the tea and the pet.

"Don't I get any?" House asked, pouting. He really didn't like tea but he would drink it out of spite.

"I guess you can have this cup, I brought something else for myself." She sipped the orange juice and House caught the telltale scent of vodka.

"I'd rather have that." He commented, watching as she produced a small satchel from her pocket. He more than recognized the green leafs and paper for what it was.

"Finish your tea first." She told him, like a mother as she attempted to roll a joint, twitched and spilled twice.

"Oh give it here." Chase snapped as he took the paper and herb, expertly rolling a perfectly packed joint then handing it back to her. "Watching you try to roll is like watching me try to dance." House was taken aback by Chase's handling of it. He would not have pegged his anti-drug duckling as the type who would know how to ready a joint.

"Thanks." She lit it, taking a deep drag, finally exhaling the smoke away from him. House was almost salivating at the smell. She looked pointedly at him and offered. He took it gladly, trying to remember the last time he had smoked marijuana.

He inhaled deeply and coughed as the acrid tang hit the back of his throat. He downed his tea to still the coughing. "Thank you." He gasped. Cass was suppressing a laugh and Chase was giving him a strange quizzical look but said nothing.

"Here," she tilted the teapot, pouring orange juice and vodka into his now empty teacup. He gladly drank it. She took the joint back and enjoyed another drag. She then handed to Robert, who held it but didn't smoke it as she stood up and dropped her robe to the ground exposing the fact she had nothing on under it. House tried not to gawk but was having a hard time. Chase didn't react at all, other than to hand her drugs back to her once she was settled on her stomach on another lounger. House deduced that if they were sleeping together, they had been doing so long enough that the sight of her naked and laid out in front of him no longer had an effect. Or, they really did just think of each other as family and there was no physical attraction at all.

"You really shouldn't be tanning like that. It's bad for your skin." Chase commented. House had a brief WTF moment as he realized Chase was lecturing her about sun damage rather than drinking, doing, drugs, or parading naked around his roof top in front of his boss.

"You can stay fish-belly white if you want. I, on the other hand, like to have a healthy glow." She defended herself.

"You know I can't tan. I just burn." Chase countered dejectedly. He unfortunately was the type of pale, pale blonde with red undertones in his hair that was incapable of being anything other than milky white or completely sunburned.

They chatted amiably and got very high as the afternoon progressed. Every now and again, Cassie or Chase would go back downstairs to stir the sauce or add something extra to it. House was praying they would invite him to dinner. By five, House and Cass were nicely toasted and the food was ready. House invited himself and Wilson to stay even as Cass invited Stacy and Mark to come. Soon the roof was filled with people enjoying great food and ample liquor, courtesy of Cassie, who felt that any get together was enhanced by alcohol. Strangely, Chase said nothing but didn't touch a drop of it.

Something interesting transpired when House suggested inviting Cameron, Cass grew quite annoyed at the idea.

"No way, isn't she the stupid slag that left the needle out for you to stick yourself with." Cass turned to Chase and questioned.

"Cameron isn't stupid." Wilson defended her.

"She left the needle out?" House asked.

"It was an accident, it could happen to anyone." He defended her. House cocked his head, clearly wanting more explanation. "It was when that teenager coded. She was distracted. It was no big deal."

"No big deal. You could have died." Cass almost screeched, outraged.

"Wait a minute; she was talking to me when that happened. She was already in the hallway and you were alone in the room. She couldn't have been distracted by the code." House pointed out.

"Really, I don't want her to get in trouble over this."

"Why?"

"Because if she finds out that it was partially her fault, and only partially, I am the one who actually stuck my self remember. Anyway, if she found out, she would feel guilty and try to make it up to me. She would follow me around trying to do nice things and stare at me with concerned eyes. She would drive me bloody bonkers and I would have to hurt her. Then Foreman would get mad at me and I would get hurt and you would have to interview two new fellows. It just isn't worth it." Chase smiled as he answered. He normally couldn't stand getting other people in trouble.

"Ok, but I think she will be stuck in the lab and working long hours for awhile." House conceded.

Cassie explained that the sauce was an old family recipe taught to her by her grandmother when she was sixteen. Her grandmother had also tried to teach it to Chase but not being Italian, he didn't have the soul for cooking. Chase agreed that he was pretty hopeless in the kitchen. It was an interesting night. Wilson gave Cassie a massage and House and Chase were pretty sure he felt her up. She convinced Chase to lie down in the grass so that House could eat off his stomach but House wouldn't let Stacy do it. Chase blushed the entire time.

Finally Cass pulled out her guitar and won House over for life by singing Rolling Stones and Beatles songs for him. Then there was the origin of the nick name Robin. House was disappointed to find out it was just a slightly uncommon shortened name for Robert. He had hoped for something cuter so he could tease his duckling about it.

Eventually the others floated off, and only House, Cass, and Chase were left. Chase was very tired and wanted to go to bed, but he wasn't sure how House was going to get down. It would be difficult at the best of times and right now, the elder doctor was quite drunk. Cass was no better, but he had plenty of experience maneuvering her around when she was inebriated.

At well after one in the morning, he finally convinced both of them to come back inside. It wasn't nearly as hard as he thought it would be. The alcohol, Vicodin, and pot must have helped the pain enough so House could maneuver down the fire escape. Cass was actually harder because she was like moving a 140 pound sleeping cat. After much struggle, Chase got House settled on the couch and then attempted to take Cass upstairs.

"You're cute." She slurred at him, reeking of vodka.

"Thank you." He told her as he tried to walk her towards the stairs, stumbling all the way.

"You're too good to me. You always take care of me." She kissed his cheek and leaned against him as he gave up and just picked her up.

"I know."

"You are the only one who cares about me. I love you."

"I love you too." He kissed her forehead as he put her into bed.

"You won't leave me like that ass." Chase didn't even bother to ask which one of her many exes she was talking about. "You won't screw me and then walk out on me because someone else is the flavour of the month." She spat with venom, now on to the stage of drunkenness where she started bashing old boy friends.

"Nope, never." He told her as he deftly changed her into a tee shirt to sleep in. He left to get her some water.

"Don't go. Lie down with me." She whined.

"I'm just going in the bathroom, I'll be right back. I promise." He quickly returned with some water. She pulled him into bed beside her.

"Stay with me." She begged and started to nibble his ear and slide her hand under his shirt.

"Stop it, sweetheart. I'll stay with you, but stop it." He pushed her hand away. She did this to him frequently when she was drunk. He was used to it. His mother used to do it too, mistake him for her current boyfriend and do inappropriate things to him. He always ignored it and thought about nuns.

"But I want you to stay with me." Her fingers drunkenly fumbled against him again.

"Listen to me." He held the side of her face till she was looking in his eyes. They were watery and red. "I will stay with you but you don't need to do this and I don't want it. I just want you to go to sleep. You don't have to fun or sexy for me. You just have to be you, ok?" Tears started to pour out of her eyes as he spoke.

"I love you so much, Robin." She cried. It was so liberating, to be with someone who didn't force you to play a role. She didn't have to be the sexy diva, the competent actress, the ditzy heiress, or anything else with Robert. With him she could just be Cass and she could fall apart and know that he would pick up the pieces and never tell anyone. But as much as she loved him and as well as she knew him, she somehow never realized what it did to him to see her like this.

"I know. I love you too." He held her as she sobbed. It was a small price to pay to hear that he was loved and really believe it.

Soon she fell asleep, her head heavy on his shoulder. He kissed the top of her head in a brotherly gesture of affection and held her close. He didn't like to think of how often they fell asleep like this, her drunk and him holding her as she cried. It was surreal; he swore he had had these same conversations with his mother. But it was still better than if she were strung out on cocaine. Then it was almost impossible to get her to lie down and go to sleep. Chase tried not to think anymore and just sleep, luckily he was tired enough that it worked.

Downstairs, sleep didn't come for House until later. He had heard everything that had been said. The bad point of living in a loft was that you could hear anything that happened anywhere in the flat. It made House sick to his stomach to listen to it. He remembered what Cass had said about Chase taking care of his mother and realized that she was doing exactly the same thing to him.

He had been doing research into ACOA syndrome and he could easily see that both Chase and Cass were clearly suffering from it. Chase was a pattern example of the hyper responsible care taker type. He was constantly afraid and craving security and affection. He perpetually drifted towards relationships like the one with his mother, always falling into the role of taking care of the addict. Cass was the totally opposite, irresponsible and expected everyone else to take care of her. She craved attention and distraction, afraid to sit still or she might feel. She played the part of the shattered addict and let others put her together and hold her up. They were pathologically codependent. His last thought before he finally gave into the alcohol tugging him towards sleep, was that the boy needed therapy.

House didn't wake until well after noon the next day. He blearily opened his eyes and felt his head pound. He noticed a glass of water and two Tylenols sitting on the table in front of him. He looked around for his coat and his Vicodin instead.

"If it's for your head, I'd suggest taking the Tylenol. It's easier on your liver." Chase commented from behind his computer. He was trying to write and e-mail to his father, explaining his behaviour. House noticed his duckling's hair was damp and he was in yet another baggy long sleeve tee shirt and baggie pair of pants, no shoes. He was beginning to wonder if Australians ever wore shoes unless they were at work.

"It's for my leg." House lied and swallowed his pill. He looked around and noticed all the windows were covered in a dark mesh that blocked out light and the kitchen was once again spotless.

"Are you hungry?" Chase asked without looking over. He had given up and moved on to reading the monthly stock report of his maternal grandfather's company.

House realized that he was, in fact, starving. "Yeah, I could eat." Before he could say more, Chase had gone to the kitchen and started making oatmeal. House wanted to protest that he would rather have leftovers but knew that oatmeal would be safer until his hang over passed.

"Here." Chase brought him a bowl along with raisins, sugar, and milk. It was good service, better than most restaurants. House shoveled it in, enjoying the sweetness.

"Aren't you going to eat?" He questioned between bites.

"I already had breakfast." In truth, last night had really bothered him and he tended to lose his appetite when he was upset.

There was a pause and House opened his mouth and inserted his foot. "So, do you have any relationships that aren't pathologically self destructive?"

"Stop it, House." Chase warned him, not wanting to discuss this with anyone.

"I'm serious. Do you purposely find addicts or do they just flock to you?" Chase said nothing. "She's a drunk."

"No she isn't. It was a party. She just had too much to drink." The duckling made excuses.

"No, no one that size who can knock back that much vodka is a social drinker, Chase. She is a lush." Chase shook his head 'no'. "You of all people should recognize the signs."

"No, it isn't like that." He was pretty sure that Chase was trying to convince himself just as much as House.

"Yeah, and your mother had migraines and ear infections. That's why she always had headaches and staggered, and why you had to take her to the hospital for pneumonia and multiple over doses. You don't have to be completely out of control to be an addict."

"I guess you would know." Chase answered coolly and rose to leave. "You can stay as long as you want. I'm going for a walk."

"Chase, wait." House called after him.

The Aussie turned on him and his eyes were painful to look at. "What am I supposed to do?"

House wished that he could have told him but he realized that he had no idea what Chase should do. He couldn't imagine what the blonde had gone through or even how to comfort him if he so chose, which he did not. The only thing he did know was that he should have kept his big mouth shut. "Go for your walk." Chase then all but ran from his own home. House made sure to be gone before he got back.

Two days after Chase came back to work, Cass had to go back to her life too. She came to the hospital and had lunch with her friend. She made sure to stop by and say goodbye to Wilson and House but avoided Foreman and Cameron. Chase walked her to her rental car and gave her a hug. "That's my shirt. Are you stealing it?" He asked as he fingered the tied tails of one of his ugly patterned shirts. It had been the one he had worn yesterday.

"Yup. I like it. It smells like you." She smiled up at him and wrapped her arms around him again, trying to hide her tears.

"You can give it back to me later." He said philologically, wiping tears from her cheek. He didn't like seeing her cry and he was dangerously close to doing it too. He hated saying good bye.

"Make House give you time off next month so we can go somewhere together." She asked him desperately.

"I'll try. Take care of yourself, please?" He breathed into her ear, feeling afraid for no reason.

"You too." She kissed him on the cheek and finally opened the door. He closed it for her and watched her drive away.

He stood for a few moments more than headed back to the office. It was almost time for him to leave and he was depressed and lonely. "You ok?" House asked as Chase walked in the door. It was only him and Wilson. He had sent the other duckling to the lab, not sure how Chase would be when he got back.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" He asked, trying to make sure his voice sounded flat and calm.

"Just making sure." House answered the same way, knowing Chase was lying but for once, deciding not to push.

A week and a half after Chase came back to work full time, things had calmed down again. Foreman was back to acting like he was better than everyone else. Cameron tried to take care of everyone, while making everyone angry and Chase did his crosswords. All was right with the world as House and Wilson sat together in his office, sharing a pizza. House's computer beeped to let him know he had a new email and he closed down the browser with the different trims for the new infinity SUV. Wilson was in the market for a new car and he ridiculously wanted one he could fit his Dalmatian in. House had told him to just get rid of Spot, not a very imaginative name, but Wilson said he would get rid of House first. Wilson was very attached to his dog. Spot had actually been a gift from House to cheer Wilson up after Rex, someone needed to help Wilson with dog names, his golden retriever had died of cancer at the age of sixteen. House had never seen his friend quite as inconsolable as he had been after having his beloved, shedding, cold nosed, stink bag put to sleep.

So after weeks of watching his best friend cry into his beer every night, House had gone on line and researched what would be a good replacement for Rex. His short list had included a Lab, but that was too pedestrian for Wilson, a German Shepherd, too dominant for kind hearted Jimmy, an Irish Setter, too hairy, a pointer, too sporty, or a Dalmatian, which was just right. House had found a breeder and given Wilson a 12 week old puppy for his birthday. Julie had been unbelievably bitter that Wilson had completely ignored her gift of a new professional outdoor grill in favour of a bouncing white puppy.

Since that moment the two were almost inseparable. If they went to lunch on their days off, it had to be somewhere with an outdoor café so Spot could come. Spot was a certified therapy dog so once a month Spot came to work. On weekends Spot could be found in Wilson's office. Spot was the screensaver on Wilson's computer. Wilson had a stuffed Spot in his office. And what really annoyed House, was that Spot didn't really like him. Stupid dog!

He clicked to open the e-mail and started bouncing in his chair and giggling like school girl. Wilson looked at him like he had grown a second head. "Did you bring enough for the rest of the class?" Wilson questioned his friend's sudden onset of childish glee.

"I just got an e-mail from the future ex Mrs. House." He answered as he started to print a large picture.

Wilson rose and walked around till his could read the message. "House, I hope this is what you were looking for. Just further proof of the fact he can't say no to people, especially me. I'd tell you not to tell him where you got it from but I know he'll figure it out. Take copious notes on his reaction so I can tease him about it tonight. – C." Cassie had told House about getting arrested and having to perform community service. She agreed to appear in a bunch of environmental print ads and this was one of them. Chase had gone with her to keep her company during the shoot and she had tricked him into being in the ad with her by saying that the other model, who had never existed, hadn't shown up and she was going to get into so much trouble. His duckling had of course agreed to help his friend, not realizing that his bare bum was going to be in every fashion magazine in The UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

House pulled a sheet from the printer and handed it to Wilson, whose jaw hit the floor when he saw it. It was a large photo of Cass and Chase, lying naked in a field. Beneath the picture was text talking about saving the environment. It was tastefully done and clearly a magazine photo. Chase mostly had his back to the camera and of his face, only part of his nose and chin were visible past his hair. If you didn't know who it was, you would be hard pressed to figure it out.

Wilson burst out laughing. "That is freaking brilliant! What are you going to do with it?"

"Help me make copies." House asked.

Wilson and House went to separate copiers and made dozens of copies. They then proceeded to tape them up all over the Diagnostics Department, fax them to the 2nd and 4th floor ICU, to Stacy, and to Cuddy. They finished just as the ducklings were returning from their clinic duty. As they neared the door Chase stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes the size of saucers and a healthy blush already creeping across his cheeks and nose. Cameron beat him to the door and pulled down one of pictures to look at it critically, Foreman right beside her.

Cameron gasped. "Chase, is that you?" She looked back at her fellow duckling, who now had his burning face firmly buried in his hands.

"I'm going to kill House." Chase mumbled from behind his hands. Cameron and Foreman started laughing hysterically as the three walked into their office. There were pictures taped everywhere, on the chairs, on the windows, above the coffee maker, on the ice box. The Aussie looked like he wanted to crawl in a whole and die. "I hate you House." He groused as he started to collect the pictures. House and Wilson had tears running down their eyes they were laughing so hard at him.

"That is a very nice picture there, man. So did you ever model with you clothes on?" Foreman managed to ask with a straight face.

"I hate all of you." Chase mumbled. Somehow this was more embarrassing than when they walked in on him in the shower.

"Don't hate us, Chase, you may want to hate your ICU nurses though." Wilson pointed out, gasping for breath.

"You hung these up in the ICU?" House hadn't thought Chase's eyes could get any wider.

"Of course not, we faxed it though." The eldest doctor answered.

"Oh no!" Chase groaned and took off running out of the door, down towards the ICU in hopes of getting the fax before anyone else saw it.

"I wonder if we should tell him we sent one to Cuddy and Stacy too?" Wilson asked.

In the ICU, Chase came skidding to a halt in front of the fax machine. Carol looked up at him quizzically. He smiled at her, shuffling through the papers stacked beside it. April came up beside him and asked in her Caribbean accent. "Did you loose something, Dr. Chase?"

"No, I was just looking for a fax." He answered too quickly.

"Was it this one?" She held up a copy of the picture and he hung his head when the catcalls started. They mostly consisted of nurses wanting water proof copies to take in shower with them and so on. Chase was mortified. He smiled, letting them know he wasn't mad and trudged back up to his own department. He was met by the rest of them still giggling.

"So, was the crisis averted?" Cameron asked.

"No. I wasn't fast enough. Apparently I am going to be masturbation material for the entire department." He blushed again.

"It's not that bad. Just think how Cam will feel when we discover that she was actually a Playboy Playmate in college." Foreman joked. Cameron blushed.

Things had begun to calm down and they let Chase explain until Cuddy and Stacy both came into the office. "Dr. House, I received a very informative fax from you a while ago. Do you care to explain?" Cuddy asked.

"Just something to add to your shrine." House smiled sweetly at her. He knew damn well that both Cuddy and Stacy scheduled their work outs around Chase's so they could ogle him, while he exercised.

"I see," she turned to leave and called over her shoulder, "and Dr. Chase, you do know I have a large pool and a very high fence if your ever in mood for some late night aquatic exercise." Cameron snickered; Stacy smiled; Foreman, Wilson, and House stared slack jawed; and Chase looked like he was about to jump out of the window.

House recovered first. "Don't worry, mommy didn't really mean. But I want you to tell daddy if she does try and touch you, so I can get pictures."

"You know, Chase, if you play this right, you might get a raise." Stacy told him. She had been trying to talk Cuddy into having a fling with the adorable Australian eye-candy for months. He was exactly what Lisa needed to help her unwind.

They all started laughing again and Chase buried his head in his folded arms. House walked over and ruffled his hair until the younger man sat back up. Then he put an arm around his shoulders and gave him a little shove. But there was a warmth to the contact that had been missing and Wilson and Stacy both noticed that it bordered on a hug.

House smiled and was content. His gamble had worked. This was the final test to see if he and Chase had finally gotten over their differences. He had taken a chance with doing something so personal to the private duckling but Chase had taken it in stride. Not his submissive compliance of before but his good natured acceptance of jokes that House liked. At least between House and Chase, things were back to normal.

FIN

A/N: Ok, hope you liked it. I know it was long but I was going for a mood. Anyway, I tried really hard not to make Cass into a Mary Sue. She originally was nothing more than a plot device, but then I got an idea for another story and kind of needed her this way. So I hope it didn't turn you guys off too much.

As for House, I wrote and rewrote the scene with him and Chase talking about Vogler about 20 times. I just couldn't find a way for him to be nice without it seeming out of character. I'm not sure if the way I did it worked or not, you be the judge. – Naja M.


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